A Little Bit of Ike

On Sunday afternoon the wind started blowing pretty hard and it took me a while to figure out that it was the remnants of Hurricane Ike hitting us all the way up here in Ohio. You may think I'm a dim bulb for not figuring it out sooner, but I don't watch much TV, so I missed hearing about it coming our way.

Anyway, the winds kept picking up and by about 6:30 p.m., our neighbor came over to say that some of our siding was flapping up and down. Our lights flickered a few times and Andy hammered the siding down, but other than that, things were pretty normal. I woke up the next day to hear that schools were cancelled because of massive power outages (over 2 million people in Ohio without electricity) and there were trees blown down everywhere. According to news reports, wind gusts of up to 75 m.p.h. hit the state and the governor declared a state of emergency. I tried to go grocery shopping and to the library, but they were both closed because of the power outages. Many stoplights were also out, causing major traffic delays. Lots of people we know lost shingles and need serious roof repairs. The most striking thing to me was that the cornfield across the street from us was totally wiped out from the wind. Only a relative few stalks are still standing. Schools were cancelled again today and there are still lots of places without power.

Talk about the force of nature. We didn't even get the brunt of the hurricane and there's still heavy damage. Looks like we need to get our emergency preparedness plans in place in case of any future events.