The remains of Hurricane Ike

The Governor of Ohio declared a state of emergency for the entire state on Sunday, Sept. 14. Two million people in Ohio were without power, and I was one of them. Today, Tuesday, Sept. 16, the number without power is under 500,000. Predictions are that it could take until Sunday for all power to be restored. Schools were closed yesterday and again today, either because the buildings don't have power or because roadways are still littered with tree limbs and downed power lines.

On Sunday starting around noon, winds that came from a mix of what used to be Hurricane Ike and the jet stream caused high wind warnings to be issued for Ohio. From noon until about 7:30 pm, there were steady winds of 30 to 40 mph, gusts of 75 mph, and then steady very high winds. By 3 pm, I lost power as well as a large limb from a beautiful 20-foot tall Bradford pear tree in my back yard. By 3:15, a bunch of my neighbors, who all heard the crack, were gathered in my back yard trying to help me figure out what to do about the tree. My back yard neighbor Todd, who helped me before when a small tree went down, got his chain saw and was starting to cut away the broken limb so that the wind wasn't pushing it against the main trunk when, suddenly, another third of the tree cracked and fell. Luckily, it fell away from where Todd was standing. He looked at me and we both said, "This tree has to go." He cut through the main trunk so that the rest of the tree fell into the yard away from the house and away from the power lines and phone lines at the back of the property. Then we started hearing more and more cracks in the area. I have the privilege of being the first in my neighborhood to have lost a tree on Sunday, but many more came down in the next hours.

On Monday, Todd and his friends showed up with a rented wood chipper and a truck from one of their businesses and more chain saws. First they took care of all his downed limbs and two gorgeous very tall pine trees that came down in his yard; then they cleared away all my limbs. And then they went off to help other people they knew. A "thank you" and "God bless you" (and chipping in--no pun intended--on the cost of the rented equipment) just isn't enough to show my gratitude.

While we were dragging my tree limbs to Todd's yard where the chipper was sitting, my neighbor Ann Morgan came out onto her deck and yelled "It's on!" It was 11:20 am. Having heard reports that it could take up to a week to restore all power, we were grateful to be among the first to get it back. All my frozen food was still frozen solid, and the refrigerator food still felt cool, so I fared well in that area. However, we had a little scare about 11:30 when we started smelling something burning outside. A small branch in one of the large trees bordering Todd's and Morgans' property line was smoking. The nearby power line must have ignited it when the surge went through as the power came on. Bill Morgan called the fire department, who said they didn't know when they could get here to check it out, so we were to just keep an eye on it and call 9-1-1 if flames appeared. One of the guys predicted that once it burned through, the branch would fall and all would be OK, and that's exactly what happened. Two fire department personnel did show up about 4 pm, and they asked me to keep an eye on it even though it appeared all was fine. I haven't smelled or seen any further problem.

I had been trying to call Debbie and Tom both Sunday and Monday to see if they had power and finally reached Tom at work Monday morning. After I got power back, we made arrangements for Debbie to bring their freezer food over. They are not among the lucky to get power back early. David called me Sunday night to check on me and confirm that he did not have power. Becky called me Monday morning to check on me; her power was restored at about 4:30 am Monday. I don't know the status of Judi or Eddie.

A lesson from this: If you have a land line, keep at least one corded phone available. As long as there is phone service, a corded phone will work but the cordless ones don't. I'm glad that I still have a separate land line and not service that is bundled in with my cable and internet (which I have been thinking about doing), and that I had 2 corded phones sitting in the basement. Although my WOWWAY cable service apparently was OK, Time Warner cable service was lost, so people who had bundled phone service with that company had no phones at all. My cell phone service went in and out until today, when it seems to be consistently operating. After this experience, I've removed those corded phones from my garage sale stack!

I checked the cemetery this morning and saw limbs everywhere; many of the huge trees there have broken limbs or split trunks. A few of the flags around the Veterans Memorial have disappeared. Surprisingly, the silk flowers and flag in the vase at Ed's grave were all intact.

One common comment in my neighborhood is that this damage and lack of power is nothing compared with the loss of life and suffering of the people of Texas and the Gulf Coast area because of Hurricane Ike.