Hurricane in Ohio

[moocow]

Anyone get fucked up by the BIGGEST HURRICANE in history?

We got lucky, but most of the area around us is in a black out... no power. It's creepy quiet outside.

[Pineconn]

I live in northeast Ohio, north of Youngstown, and though I never lost power, our yard got hit pretty hard:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v125/PokeMaster/SANY0056.jpg

[Zaphod Q. IX]

This thing has been crazy. Almost a million homes lost power in Cincinnati, including mine. I was without power for 36 hours, and without cable, internet, or phone for about 52 hours. It would have been fun, except for all the stress of worrying about my family. :|

I've never seen anything like what happened on Sunday. It's like a war zone here. The police drive by every half hour shining their lights in people's yards and windows. Businesses and houses have burned down every couple blocks, including the local Elks club which burned to the ground. There are live power lines in the middle of random streets. People are sitting on their porches with baseball bats, and / or guns near at hand in case of trouble. Some of the members of city council tried to get marshal law declared.

Half the streets are still closed, and 500,000+ homes still have no electricity. There are TONS of trees down everywhere, including two big guys in my yard. I'd estimate that they weigh at least 500 pounds each. One of them fell on my van. Luckily, it's a tank, and I got a dent the size of a quarter on the back door and a scratched window. ;) The other fell in between my house and the neighbor's with about six inches to spare on either side. I feel extremely lucky. Many others lost everything.

I sat on my porch through most of the storm, and I saw tons of things flying down the street that had no business being airborne, including street signs and tires. I also watched a tree about a hundred feet tall fall on my neighbor's house, which was crazy. It took out his power lines, a bedroom window, and half of his front porch. I got tons of pictures of the devastation that I'll post when I get time. I wish I'd gotten pictures of some of the bizarre things I saw during the storm, but you can never grab your camera in time.

One of the worst parts of this whole ordeal for me was my son being freaked out. He's had nightmares since the storm. It did make him feel alot better to help me clean up the yard on Monday though (his daycare was closed). It helped him to feel like he was part of putting things back to normal. He keeps walking around saying "the trees fell down, daddy" and "no red, no green" (traffic lights...he's two, cut him some slack ;) ) The traffic lights being out really bothers him, I guess since he likes to yell "green means go!" and "red means stop!" while we're driving...

Another strange thing is the stores. Most are closed because they have no power. Those that are open all have hand-written signs in the windows listing what they are out of. None have ice. Most are out of bread and milk. BREAD AND MILK! All of the home improvement stores have hand written signs in their windows that say "NO GENERATORS!!!111"

And gas stations. OMG. The two big gas stations on the main drag here had lines over a mile long yesterday. They had to have cops direct traffic around the people waiting to buy gas. They both ran out of gasoline. People waited for their next gas delivery. That's messed up. The clerk at the Speedway told me tonight that people waited in line for five hours today for the gas truck to arrive.

And none of the traffic lights work...which is a real treat, since everyone seems to turn into a raving fucking idiot at a traffic light that's out. Can you say "four-way stop?" It makes me want to get out and direct traffic for them, so they don't hurt themselves.

All I can say is...it's like living in an honest to goodness war zone for a few days.

[Beldaran]

All of this vindicates my paranoia.

I have, stashed away, 10 gallons of drinking water, four days worth of non-perishable food, a radio powered by handcrank, several boxes of flashlight batteries and an expensive flashlight to go with it, a thermal blanket, flares, first aid kit, chemical heat packs, breathing masks, rubber gloves, a gigantic knife, and some emergency cash.

If you can get a hurricane in Ohio, who knows what could happen here in Tornado/Hurricane country? (Texas).

Or if robots take over.

[Zaphod Q. IX]

I have, stashed away, 10 gallons of drinking water, four days worth of non-perishable food, a radio powered by handcrank, several boxes of flashlight batteries and an expensive flashlight to go with it, a thermal blanket, flares, first aid kit, chemical heat packs, breathing masks, rubber gloves, a gigantic knife, and some emergency cash.

LOL. Good show. I have over a month's worth of non-perishable food on hand...plus plenty of drinking water, soda, juice, and beer (of course). ;)
I also keep a big box of powdered milk in my pantry, as well as ten military MRE's.
I have two bottles of unopened whiskey in the basement, too...just in case of a DIRE emergency. :sb:

I also have these really cool faraday flashlights (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanically_powered_flashlight#Faraday_flashlight ). Those, in addition to the hundreds of candles I keep in my basement, were life-savers. I almost humped my Bay-gen radio (http://www.ccrane.com/radios/wind-up-emergency-radios/freeplay-plus-radio.aspx), btw...

I also had a full tank of gas in all three of my vehicles when the storm hit...not because I ran out and waited in line for gas, but because I always keep them full. I also have my bicycle if gasoline is on short rations for longer than a month.

I hate to say it, but I felt somewhat superior when driving past all those fools waiting in line at the gas stations, and even more so when driving past the crazy folks standing up and eating at fast food places because all the seats were full. We just cooked on the side-burner of our gas grill. :D

I also knew that the old saying "Cash is king!" holds true especially in a crisis like this. I hit the ATM as soon as I heard the shit was about to hit the fan and withdrew over $500. It was a very good idea, since no one has been able to accept credit cards since Saturday night. Most of the ATM's have been down, too.

I believe in the Boy Scout motto..."Be prepared". The only thing I didn't own in time for this storm is a generator. I'll be buying one this month.

[Beldaran]

hehe nice.

I'm thinking of stockpiling gas since the gulf oil supply is 100% disrupted right now. (Or so I heard on the radio.)

I'd like to have a gun, but not enough money right now. Also, I need to increase my food/water supplies.

And I totally agree about full tanks of gas. I fill up my tank pretty much every time I drive by the gas station and I have 5 minutes to blow. I can't stand the feeling of having 1/2 a tank.

[bigjoe]

This has been a messy hurricane season.

Gustav wasnt very bad but people overreacted to it and that probably costed us. My family went all the way to Alabama for hardly anything. Well, there were a couple fallen trees and a nasty mess of branches, but a few days work could fix that.

Ike was just plain unprecedented.

[The Desperado]

I never lost power. It was great. My apartment complex is fine but everything around us is closed. So getting gasoline sucks cause none of the stations have power.

[aces2022]

My mom back in canton hasn't had power for about a week now. We were supposed to have a "typhoon" here in Okinawa. It never came though. Typhoon = hurricane. Just one of those cultural things.