Topic: Cincinnati is a 3rd-world city, aka, I'm back from the stone age

[Cobra951]

Hurricane Ike made it here with the eye-wall fucking intact.  Jesus Christ on crutches.  We've been without electricity since midday on Sunday.  It just now came back.  It could have been worse.  They're saying power won't all be restored for a week--a week!

I have never seen wind like that in Cincinnati, ever.  It must have been 70 mph, sustained at better than 55 mph for like 3 hours.  Every tree had some damage, and lots of them fell, some of course over power lines.  90% of Duke Energy's client's lost power, over 800,000 customers.

I've been living by candlelight and my best entertainment was the Nintendo DS.  I did get to walk around the neighborhood a lot, and met a bunch of nice people.  So it wasn't all a nightmare.  But sitting alone in a quiet room barely lit by flickering candlelight is pure torture.  Last night I had to get out of here and went to my brother's.  He also had no power, but he does have a gas grill.

So yeah, here I am after a trip to the 18th century.  Hope Scott dodged the bullet.

[Quemaqua]

Yikes.  That's scary.

I actually kind of like when the power goes out.  I mean, I hate it, but I don't find it torturous.  I light a couple candles and spend a lot of time reading.  Or, if it's raining, a lot of time out walking in the rain.

Glad you're okay!  I was wondering why you disappeared from IRC.

[Ghandi]

Glad you came out of it safe. I didn't realize that Ike caused that much damage so far from the coast.

We had the power go out months ago and the one thing that stood out to me was how quiet it was. It was great, I loved it (at first).

[Cobra951]

No TV.  No PC.  No internet.  No light.  No AC.  No hot coffee.  No hot food.  For close to 60 hours.

Hell yeah it was quiet.  And yes, I did read 100 pages out of a novel by the time it was all over, but not by candlelight.  That sucks.  DS only in the dead and dark of night.  Recharged it once with the remaining battery power in my UPS.  I was playing Metroid Fusion on it when my lamp suddenly came on.  Yes!  Thank God.

[scottws]

We lost power while I was watching the Bengals.  It came back on shortly before the game ended.  But yeah 2hrs or so tops.  But after our power went out I was trying to listen to the Bengals on 1530am in the car and about 30 minutes or so later, that station went out too!

I think you're underestimating the wind.  I remember it being insanely windy from like 1pm to 6pm.  But you're not kidding... it was unreal; I've never seen anything like it before.  And yes the highest recorded windspeed was 74mph.  Sustained was around 60mph.

I lost several shingles on my roof; several neighbors lost almost an entire side of their roofs.  I also found out my two big trees in my back yard are unhealthy because they both lost about 80% of their limbs.  Pieces of aluminum and vinyl siding were blowing around everywhere (thankfully I have a full brick home).  Jennie's mom had a giant ~60lb. flowerpot tip over and then basically disappear.  All she found was the dirt and ruined plant.

So much fun.  I'm still cleaning that damn mess up and then I have to go cut up two huge trees with a chainsaw at my elderly next-door neighbors whenever I get done with my yard.  I think it won't be until Sunday or so before I'm done cleaning up the mess outside.

There's still no power in some of St. Bernard and most of Northside.  I also saw a large chunk of homes on Montana Ave. that obviously didn't have power.  There are still many traffic lights out and I guess that Artemis traffic system is out too.  A bunch of people at work still didn't have power today and were staying at relatives' houses.  Jennie's son has been off school the past two days and is off again tomorrow and Jennie's been off Monday and Tuesday so far because her work has no power.

It's also been like a battle royale trying to get gas.  So many stations either don't have power or are out of gas from all the crazy people that thought armageddon was coming like on 9/11 and went out and filled up.  I found a station today that had regular and was still $3.99/gal (I saw a few that went up to $4.19/gal) so I went there and almost got in a fight with a guy over a pump.

[Cobra951]

I stepped outside during the worst of it, not realizing how bad it was.  No rain at all.  It was sunny.  But the trees were alive.  Everything was swaying around violently.  Standing up was a bit of a challenge.  It felt so surreal.

The house has a couple of aluminum-siding panels torn off.  We lost no trees, and had no neighbors' trees land on our yard either.  So that's a bit of luck.  I walked the whole neighborhood the day after, and there were piles of branches and other debris lining the sidewalks.  Everyone was out cleaning up.  My mom has a lawn service, and they came out almost immediately, so I lucked out there too.  There was--maybe still is--a huge tree right across Fleming road near Winton road.  Right over the power lines, knocking over one telephone pole completely, and cracking a second one.  I have pictures in my phone.  I'll post them sometime.

Most businesses were closed around here.  Both La Rosa's (pizza) that deliver to this address were out.  I found a little Chinese place by Brentwood Bowl that had power.  They make good stuff.  That's what we had last night.  We stayed off the roads completely most of the time, so we've avoided gas-price gouging, so far.

[gpw11]

Damn, that's crazy.  You should find a way to capitalize on this motherfucking act of god.

[scottws]

A friend of mine suggested renting a nice heavy-duty woodchipper and driving around and charging people like $20 to chip all their limbs, branches, and trees.  Everyone needs it.  I bet you'd make something like $80 - $100 an hour.

[Ghandi]

I'd be willing to bet that it's hard to find a woodchipper to rent after a hurricane hits. Still, that's a great idea if you can get your hands on one.

[gpw11]

Yeah, good luck with that.  Great idea, but after a semi-large storm here a couple years ago that knocked out quite a bit of power and did a fair amount of damage it was impossible to get a power generator so we could work.  Like, we couldn't even buy one.  I imagine wood chippers would be pretty much the same deal there.

[Cobra951]

That's it.  Anything you might think you need or that even might make your life more bearable is gone--batteries, generators, hurricane lamps, battery-operated lamps, maybe battery-operated TVs?  My brother could not find a single D-cell.

Pictures of the destruction caused by that tree across a road nearby.  The township told the residents that they could do nothing about it until Duke Energy took care of the downed wires.  Duke Energy told them 3-5 days to get to it.

That's not a dead end in the distance.  That's the tree.
Close, from the same side.
Ow . . . what a mess.
Need 3 shots at that range.  Only took 2.

[Ghandi]

That's pretty scary - that tree is huge. That must have been some serious wind.

Whoever lives in that house behind that tree is lucky that it didn't fall on their house.

[Cobra951]

They cleared it out yesterday.  Now like everywhere else, there's stacks of branches and firewood lining the roadside.  I feel for whoever works for the township who has to pick all that up.  It hasn't happened yet.

Power went out for an hour yesterday, late afternoon.  I knew it might happen, but it was hard to take anyway.  I ended up walking outside until it came back.  Met more neighbors and saw 3 deer cross one of our neighborhood streets.  It's not that rural here.  It's a wonder there are any left nearby.

[scottws]

There were like 2,000 deer in Mt. Airy Forest.  I think I remember hearing that it can only really support a few hundred.

I still have to clean up my yard completely.  It's a work in progress.  I'll post pics sometime soon.

[Ghandi]

I would find it hard living away from so much wildlife - I've grown to enjoy it. There was a black bear outside of my apartment the other day walking around and going through trash. Wish I'd had my camera.

[WindAndConfusion]

Teacher OK after crashing into bear on a bicycle

[scottws]

I promised I would have some pictures of the storm, and I finally have them.

http://scottws.zapto.org/gallery/?level=album&id=4

I suggest sorting by filename.  That way they are in the proper order.

[sirean_syan]

You'll all have to let us know if you see a lot of pregnant women walking around in half a year. You can also let us know if you're going to be a father in eight months, but please leave out the details on those reports.

[Cobra951]

I have to say people were very friendly during that week, and the weather was perfect, so everyone was outside.  Even without considering sex, I thing we should have more outages, so we have nothing to do besides getting to know our neighbors.