Our Taste of Ike

Power outages continue to plague the Cincinnati area after our brief taste of Ike. According to Cincinnati.com

There were 247 calls for power lines down, 31 reported structure fires - though the worst were in Over-the-Rhine, where several Italianate buildings erected in the 1800s were damaged - and 58 outdoor fires.

There are also 6 reported fatalities.

My family has been extremely lucky, though the power has been out in our surrounding area, we only lost electricity for about two hours on Sunday. Monday, our traffic lights were out, local businesses were closed, including our grocery, and the roads were still hazardous. My husband commutes to Kentucky, and claimed he had several brushes with possible accidents on the way. We had dinner from White Castle in Roselawn.

Today, our local traffic lights are working, and the local grocery is open. I'm actually about to run up to Kroger to buy toilet paper, we've been out since Sunday. But, according to my husband, traffic lights are still out around the city, and commuting can be quite the pain.

Palin Indian Hill Appearance Canceled

Those who were willing to pay $10k to get their picture taken with VP nominee Sarah Palin are out of luck. Due to the storms and power outages, she canceled her scheduled appearance in Indian Hill. Palin was supposed to appear at noon at the home of John Barett, Ceo of Western-Southern Financial Group.

The prices:

$2,500 to just get in the door.
$10,000 to have your picture taken with her
$25,000 for a private reception before lunch

Her interview with Sean Hannity was also canceled, but those of us who aren't ultraconservative weren't expecting much from it anyway. Instead, Hannity will be interviewing her Wednesday in Youngstown. I highly recommend watching anything else on TV instead, or if your power is out, watch some paint dry, you'll get more out of it.

Windy City Cincinnati

The Cincinnati Bengals played the Titans today, and just as my hubby and I were getting into the game, our power started flickering off and on. Outside the wind was gusting, tree branches were slapping against our windows, and we got to experience just a small taste of Ike. According to my family, the winds started at around 30 mph, and went up to around 50. Halfway into the first quarter of the game, our power went off for good, leaving us without electricity for about 2 hours.

Unlike sensible people, instead of staying inside where it's warm and safe, we had a birthday party to head to. We left the house just as our power came back on. Outside, the roads were littered with fallen twigs, and not a single traffic light was working. The wind was still blowing, rocking our car at times, and it was all rather freaky.

We drove from Finneytown up to Montgomery, and witnessed the extent of our neighborhood's damage first-hand. Many large branches had fallen, most narrowly avoiding the houses below, or stopped by another branch in the tree and left dangling. Whole trees were completely uprooted, and a couple of houses we drove by were missing vinyl siding. With the traffic lights all out, each intersection felt as we were risking our lives, people didn't seem to understand the concept of four-way stopping. On the highway, large branches blocked entire lanes, and empty cars were left on the shoulders with their emergency lights on.

When we left our house, our destination still had power, but as we arrived, their power had also gone out (and is still off as I write this). We grilled a quick birthday dinner outside, then quickly returned home after the presents were opened. We were visiting for around two hours, and on the way home, the streets were a lot clearer. Traffic lights were still out, but it seemed city crews had done a pretty decent job of clearing out the streets, or those without power could have done it out of boredom.

Our house is surrounded by tall trees. After a bad rainstorm last year, we actually had one of the trees fall in our back yard, narrowly missing the house. Luckily, this time around we only have twigs littering our back yard.