Having spent my adult life in CA, I was naively unaware of the magnitude, and oddity, of the storm.
One time when ignorance was somewhat blissful. I was still very sad over my sweet Tashi baby, and glad to have Mom and Mandy to distract me. I was just thinking it was a strong late summer storm.
WRONG.
I was not really paying much attention to the tree tops in the IF, for all I knew they always blew like that in big storms.
Apparently not.
The trees would whip one direction for a few minutes, then stabilize somewhat before whipping around in a different direction. The winds were coming from all different directions with little time between. Had I realized the oddity, I would have watched them more. People who have lived in Ohio for 80+ years say they never saw anything like it before.
Mom later told me she was scared, and she doesn’t get scared of storms. Dad would get scared in storms, but mom is not so inclined, normally.
I naively hung out in the living room on a ladder, scraping peeling and cracked paint. Snuggie was in the basement, mostly because of Mandy and Mom both being there, but probably because he was being a bit smarter than the rest of us. Jaz was hanging out in the living room.
The IF protected Kia Rio, and we escaped with absolutely no damage. Some big branches fell in the IF, and a tree fell and hit my neighbors front porch, but most of us within a 6 house strip, got away with little to no structural damage, and just tree debris to clean up.
The first time I realized the magnitude of what I had just been through was on Monday morning, when I awoke and found the electric was not yet back on. I decided to run up the street to the Shell station and grab a couple of bags of ice for me, Mom and her neighbors. Well, I got about a half a mile up the street, passed several downed billboard sized signs and when I got up to the gas station, this is what it looked like:
The white in the background is the canopy.
I figured they probably were not going to sell me any ice at the moment, so after I closed my mouth, I went over to the station across the street. They sold out of ice on the evening of the storm.
I had heard that some parts of Dayton had power, so I drove toward my friend Mandy’s house and when I got into Dayton I started to see traffic lights that worked and street lights on. It was about 7 am.
I went into store after store - of the few that had electric and were open-- and nobody had ice. I finally gave up after having drove around for a while and having seen an enormous number of trees, limbs and branches down in yards, blocking roads and creating havoc.
I went out to Mom’s and picked her up and we went in search of stores that were open so we could get her more batteries, some lamp oil, ice and other emergency provisions of non-food nature.
While mom and I drove around, we listened to the radio. Over 200,000 in the Dayton area without electric. All schools were closed. A restaurant had caught fire and burned. Just as we approached the Dayton Mall area, the newscaster said that there was a major electrical situation in the south parking lot of the Dayton Mall, with a big set of lines down and live in the parking lot. Nice.
We chanced upon an area that had electric, working traffic lights and so we set about looking for ice, batteries and lamp supplies in the stores. We had company. Long lines were at the few gas stations that were open. It takes electric to pump gas…
After hitting many stores, we finally scored some D batteries but did not find lamp oil. I gave her mine and just used my candles. We decided to hit a fast-food restaurant if we found one open. We did, an Arby’s, and the drive though line was to the street and the lobby line was out the door and along the side of the building. We went back to Kia Rio and I made us pancakes and eggs on my backpacking stove.
We got back to Mom’s house mid-day, after taking a trip to check on Dad. His decorations were still intact, but the beautiful tree about 30 feet from his headstone had been literally sheared -off about 3 feet from the ground. The thing is probably 12 inches in diameter and the whole tree trunk was snapped. Dad loved where the tree was, and talked about it shielding his grave from the snow. Hopefully they will replant a good sized tree in its place.
One of Mom’s neighbors is a family that runs carnival rides and concessions. Thankfully, they had a huge diesel generator. The man had the good sense to hook it up and bring it home when they emergency evacuated the festival they were set up at. He ran an extension cord from it to Mom’s house so she could plug in her refrigerator. Later in the day he set out an extension box and gave mom a second line and connected 2 other neighbors to it. He said it can power 3 carnival rides with no problem.
Mom’s house had lots of downed branches and her pear tree was hit again. About two weeks ago it was hit by lighting and it was only on Thursday when her neighbor finally came and sawed it up for his fireplace. Now an even bigger section of it is spread out across her back yard. She lots a few roof shingles from the house and a few from the garage and the gutter on the garage was ripped off. Nothing we cannot handle.
The newscasters are saying that it could be this weekend before the electric is restored. This is due to 2 primary factors. 1- the widespread damage - Ike cut a path probably 100 miles wide with sustained winds of 50 to 75 miles an hour and they were wild for about 3.5 hours. Electric lines are down everywhere. The meteorologists called it a level 1 hurricane. The other factor is that many of our emergency workers and utility employees headed to Texas to help with recovery there. They have been recalled.
Ohio is officially declared a disaster area with 84 of our 88 counties suffering damage. The worst of it hit here in Dayton and to the north - Columbus and to the south- Cincinnati.
Mandy was lucky she was not home because the tree in front of her house fell right where she normally parks her car. Fortunately the tree fell across the street, and was just short of hitting her neighbor’s house.
Fortunately, my 3 tubs of earthquake supplies were in the garage, so I was able to whip out the 2 backpack stoves, lanterns, candles and stove fuel. I also have my Eton emergency radio with TV and weather along with a light, siren, and cell phone charger - the radio runs by 3 “AA” batteries or by hand crank. I highly recommend each house to have one. They are only $50. Radio Shack sells them and as it turns out, Walgreens here sells them and had them on sale on Monday for $30. Odd, they are usually raising prices on those types of things in an emergency. I bought one for Mom in Dad’s memory - he would have loved that radio. We are calling the radio “Joe” after Dad.
Anyway, a lot of the gas stations that had electric are now out of gas because people went into panic mode. Luckily, Mom and I had been out on Friday or Saturday and we filled up her tank and I went back and filled mine up, so we had no worries about gas for the car. She heard prices might spike because of the hurricane, so we filled up to avoid the spike. Thank heavens.
Well, I was able to cook meals for me and Mom on the stoves. My electric came back on Tuesday evening about 6:30, just as I finished fixing us a rather decent looking meal for the situation.
Mom still does not have any electric. Fortunately the neighbor is periodically running the huge generator to keep the refrigerators cool. I hope she gets her electric back before the weekend.
My crappy ass digital phone service does not work if the electric is out.
Mom has old fashioned phone service, and I think I will switch providers because I did not care for not having the phone to call her on. My cell doesn’t really work here in the house.
Well, Dayton is still in emergency situation and realistically the power could go back off as it has done for some folks. Precarious situation. It will be next week before life here returns to business as usual.
Thankfully, the weather has been fall like and people have not needed fans or a/c so that is good news.
Snuggie and Jaz are still looking for little Tashi and my heart still aches for his sweet self. Ike’s wrath was a distraction for a while, but now my home life is back to what it was before Sunday.
Jaz still won’t go in the bedroom unless I coax him in while I am there. I am wondering if laying Tashi on my bed while we dug his grave was the best idea. We continue to sleep on the couch and loveseat. Maybe tomorrow I will try to get Jaz to take a nap with me on the bed. Tashi’s absence is most noticeable at night when he should be laying across my feet/shins or between my calves. Trying to sleep there without Jaz and Snuggie to pick up some slack is not fun. The couch is a different space and has no history of Tashi sleeping with me on it.
Time for bed.
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