Ike Hits Dayton?

I woke up this morning having no idea what was in store for us. After coming home from church to a sunny Sunday afternoon and cutting the grass, we were then inundated with ferocious winds--hurricane-like winds. I guess it was the remnants of hurricane (now tropical storm) Ike, which devastated Texas, along with a fierce cold front from the plains and Chicago area.

For a period of about five hours we had winds in excess of 60-70 mph, causing major tree damage and some structural damage to surrounding structures and homes. We were lucky--only a few big tree branches came down, but our neighborhood looks like a war zone. I've never seen such widespread chaos--branches down everywhere, large trees uprooted--it is insane. The whole neighborhood is dark and silent at this hour (8:30 p.m.). People are cleaning up their yards as best they can, but wow. Talk about an interesting day. Rhonda is sitting next to me reading a book by lantern while I have candles lit and am using up the remaining battery power on my laptop.

Since we couldn't make dinner at home we decided to venture out and ended up at Bob Evans, the only place to have power in the area because of their generator. They had a limited "storm menu" and Rhonda got the last of the chicken noodle deep dishes, much to the anger of some surrounding people sitting around us. An hour and a half of waiting and we finally got our food and ended up with free candy bars because the waitress didn't ring them up.

Since our power is out while I'm writing this, I'm pretty bored and trying to keep myself occupied. I can't post to the blog until I have access to the Internet again. Who knows when we'll have power. I'm trying to figure out how I'm going to wake up in the morning. Hoping my cell phone alarm is set properly! What an interesting day indeed.

Update Sept 16: Power still out in many places. Our block is the only one with power in our neighborhood and it still looks like a war zone. We have no cable or Internet service. Stop lights are still out (people need to learn how to treat them like four way stops), and gas is scarce. Life is still not back to normal as of today, but it's getting there.

Update Sept 18: Power outages still in progress for some, but just found out my parents got their power back after several days. Things seem to be getting back to normal, but there are still a lot of trees down and branches/debris everywhere.

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY: Over the course of the past several days, I've come to a stark realization of the frailty of our infrastructure as we know it. The Dayton area suffered a borderline catastrophic event, with 70-80 MPH (hurricane force, category 1) winds. Hundreds of thousands of people were without power for days upon days. In Dayton (or Ohio for that matter), we're just not used to that scenario. Around here, power outages usually only occur with very severe thunderstorms or snowstorms and are isolated to a few neighborhoods. This was spread to the entire state of Ohio. Worse yet, no one seemed to know it was coming. Not even the weather forecasters predicted it that I'm aware of.

My feeling is, if a major disaster were to strike here, things would be very, very bad. We saw people's lack of common sense or courtesy with the various non-functioning stoplights. People blew through them like they weren't even there, even though they're supposed to be treated as four-way stops. People chewed out proprieters of the only open restaurants around. And, a curfew had to be imposed in Carlisle to hinder looting and crime due to power outages. What if something happened which took the power out for weeks? Or damaged the water supply? What if everyone's water was tainted or phone lines down? How would Dayton handle it? Simply put, we wouldn't. I, for one, think the city would just implode on itself. While sometimes bad situations bring out the best in people, unfortunately, it usually brings out the worst as well, and people become self-centered jerk-offs.

It just goes to show--just because the sun is shining doesn't mean a catastrophe isn't happening right before your eyes. Next time, it could be even worse.