Wind storm (Cincinnati, Dayton, Mason: power lines, condo, how much)

[aquila]

So anyone have any stories about this past Sunday's wind storm in the Cincinnati area? Did you have any damage, lose any trees, run out of food, etc...?

I lost power around 1:15 in the afternoon, and when it was apparent that we weren't going to get it back anytime soon, I decided to take a drive. I thought maybe someone smacked into a pole up the street or something, so I went out to have a look around. I had no idea the extent of what we were encountering. I decided to pull off the road and sit next to a bike trail near my house, and that's when I felt strength of the winds blowing through. I'd never seen anything like it. It was nonstop for hours.

After a while, I decided to head back home and discovered a number of snapped trees along the lane leading to my house. Still had no power, so I decided to head over to my mom's house about 10 miles away to see if she was okay. My phone was dead because the cable went out (I have digital phone), so I couldn't call anyone. And I don't use a cell phone. (That may change soon. ) The whole trip over there was like weaving through a maze of downed trees and detours because power lines had snapped and trees were blocking the road. Some shingles smacked the windshield of my car, and I had to close my window because the wind was kicking up sand and dirt and slinging it like a sandblaster against my face.

After checking to make sure she was okay, I left and it was so eerie to see everything dark and people out walking around surveying all the damage. The top wind recorded in Cincinnati was supposedly about 84 mph, and it was clocked right here in West Chester! No wonder I felt like the car was about to lift off the ground and start flying.

Decided to go shopping --- Biggs, surprisingly enough, was open --- and bought lots of food that didn't need to be cooked. I think it's probably not a bad idea to have a gas stove! Didn't get my power back on until almost 3:00 in the morning, and then it went out again at 4:00 Monday afternoon. Finally came back on for good around 10:00 Monday night, but I didn't have phone or internet service until just a few hours ago.

Hope everyone is okay through this and that you didn't have much damage.

[LadyBeBop]

I'm a little surprised there's not many postings regarding Sunday's wind...however maybe most of the posters don't have their power back.

Me? We live in the Lakemont Subdivision right on the border of Erlanger and Independence (within Erlanger city limits). Lost power for good about 1:45. We were watching the Bengals game We had power interruptions all during the first quarter, then it went off for good about the beginning of the second quarter. Hoping that the outage was just our small condo building, my husband and I walked to the community gym about a block away so we could exercise and catch the rest of the game on their TV. When the exercise equipment and TV wouldn't work, I knew it was more widespread.

We have no battery operated radios, so we could not listen to the game.

Around 3, my daughter called from the airport (she works for Comair) informing us that the tower was evacuated, and planes were just circling Cincinnati. Part of the roof was blown off the Delta hanger.

About 5:30, I called my father up in Montgomery. His power also went out about 1:45. However, he did have a radio, and he said that over 600,000 were without electricity and may be for days. At that time, I knew I needed to get out and get ice.

However, I only had about an eighth of a tank of gas in my car. I was going to get gas on Monday.

With little gas in my car, and no way to know if anyplace was open, I was stuck. (I had no telephone numbers....we don't keep a phone book in the house. It takes up too much space, and besides, we have an electronic phone book called the Internet. Unfortunately, it doesn't work when the electric is out.)

Happily, the electricity came back on for good about 8 pm that night.

[tntnb]

I was lucky -- among the 10% who never lost power. (Don't hate on me for that! Deer Park usually loses power whenever it sprinkles.) Like so many, I also did not understand the full extent of what was happening. I just stood at the window thinking "Garsh, it's windy! I wonder if my son's soccer game will be canceled."

Then a gigantic tree bough came crashing onto the back porch. Right on top of some game the kids had been playing earlier. Gulp.

As the storm continued, tree limbs and branches and other debris kept piling up in the back yard. The wind threw a big metal deck chair across the back porch and through some latticework on the deck. We brought the cat in about midway through, but she stupidly slipped back outside when I cracked opened the back door for one more quick peek outside.

Afterward, I was feeling very lucky. Two or three neighbors' homes lost the roofs. Another neighbor's house sustained moderate damage to the siding. Whole trees were down and laying across streets. How in the world we didn't lose power, I'll never understand.

Monday, my daughter and I ventured out in the car to look for a grocery store. The neighborhood IGA was closed, as was everything else in the Dillonvale Shopping Center. But the Remke store in the middle of town was open and doing a booming business. I'm still sore from cleaning up the massive amounts of debris from our (and the neighbors) yard.

By Tuesday, we had friends coming over to shower and get a hot meal. We may be hosting more today, if Duke Energy doesn't come through with their prediction of 85% restoration by this evening . . .

I had to drive to Mason yesterday afternoon for a business meeting (I work at home) and was expecting the worst, especially with the water main break problems on I-71. So I took Reed Hartman Highway out to Fields-Ertel. Amazingly, all the traffic lights the whole way were working. (I'd been hearing horror stories about rude drivers at nonfunctional lights.) Saw plenty of gas stations open too (though the prices were varying pretty wildly.) The lines were pretty long at all the fast-food joints too.

Today, the Deer Park public schools are open, as is the Catholic grade school in town. Hopefully, things are mostly getting back to normal for most.

Good luck to all, hope more will come on and report their experiences. As my 7-year-old put it, "I've seen something no one else around here ever did before."

[Hartwell Girl]

Hartwell looks like a war zone. Still a lot of streets with no power, trees uprooted, snapped in half ontop of homes, streets blocked with large trees down. But hey, people are out and talking, helping eachother and trying to make the best of a bad situation. Only wish I was home when an idiot in a jeep decided to drive up on the sidewalk and through my neighbors yard (has shurbs which line the sidewalk) to get around a downed tree. Other than that, things are okay. Added a few pics to my profile page under "storm"...I will try to add more later.

[CinciSux09]

I live on the west-side and we were hit rather hard as well. I lost power on Sunday morning and didn't get it back until Tuesday evening. A few trees in my backyard were broken but didn't lose any shingles or had any other damage besides the tree on the garage. Guess we were pretty lucky as well.

It's amazing driving around seeing the damage from it. I've seen very old trees up rooted leaving gaping holes in the ground, and impressive bases bigger than a car.

[driftwoodpoint]

We got power Tuesday morning but here it is Wednesday evening and two of my neighbors still don't have power. We lost one tree and lots of limbs. We live in a woods. Our neighbors lost four big trees. One huge Oak, that was about three hundred years old, was lost. It went right up through the middle of their deck. So sad. I learned I need a radio with batteries!!!!

[wrightflyer]

Since there is no other thread to post in about the storm, this will go here.

We lost power up in the Dayton suburbs around 2pm or so on Sunday. Some of my friends never lost power, which of course made me jealous when I turned on my shower Tuesday morning. Boy, was that a cold one. We finally got power and cable back by Tuesday at 3pm and have been fine since, knock on wood.

Many of our neighbors lost trees or large sections of trees, but we live in a newer subdivision so nothing major. There was signifigant shingle and siding damage in our neighborhood however, including about three dozen shingles from our house. Others lost whole swaths of their roofing and had to get tarps to protect against leakage.

Had to clean out the fridge Tuesday since everything had gone bad. At least it gave us a chance to clean the fridge itself.

There are still a few areas without power here, and some traffic lights still don't work which makes it a pain to drive around town. The Kroger is finally open again (first time it closed in a long while). School continue to be closed or on 2 hour delays. Gas stations that had been open are now getting back to normal after running out of gas. Stations are charging on average $3.99 a gallon. The most annoying aspect now is that they are taking a while to clear off some of the main roads near our development so traffic has to be rerouted a ways through town.

Hope everyone is doing ok. It could be worst. We could be in Galveston. Pray for everyone.

[tntnb]

You know, one thing that has surprised me about all of this is how few of the grocery stores seem to have backup generators. I guess the Meijer stores had them and remained open, but gee . . . you'd think Kroger would've had them, if not some of the smaller chains like IGA or Remke.

[cphilz87]

i was at the game when the storm hit i didn't know power was out untill the game was over. Downtown had some pole fell over on cars and window blown out. I got power back about 8 yesturday and cable and internet today.

[Hartwell Girl]

The City of Cincinnati has started collecting all the brush at the curbs in our neighborhood today, big job, but things are looking better. Still quite a few without power in Hartwell but hopefully they will be back to normal soon. Those guys working on the lines sure get a great reception...people clapping when they see them...sure hope they really know how much everyone appreciates their hard work!