The Daily McBlog

15 September 2008

Weathering the Storm

Eric and I were out yesterday, and the kids were at their grandparents.  The power went out twice during the movie but immediately came back on, so we were able to see the entire show.  We left the theater and as we walked out the door I saw a van with a rear window missing.  The tropical storm force winds of Ike had apparently blown the window right out of the van.  I casually said to Eric, "That is what is going to happen to our van," because the clip that holds our rear window closed broke a couple weeks ago.  This is the part where you all realize how completely brilliant I am.  It was our van that we were looking at.  Eric laughed at me, of course, and then we dealt with going to K-Mart to buy trash bags and duct tape to put over the window.  Ever tried to tape plastic onto a vehicle in 50+ mile per hour winds?  It is not an easy task, but we managed to get the job done and then, instead of heading to the Olive Garden, we picked up the kids and went home. We stopped at Kroger to find something that we could have for dinner since we expected to find a house without power when we arrived home.  They had a generator going, which was enough to keep a few rotisserie chickens warmed.  Monday is grocery day at our house, so it was going to be PB&J if I didn't find something at Kroger!  The good news is that we came home to one of the very few houses in our development with power, so we're managing just fine. Other than the damage to our van (please pray that we find a window to replace it very inexpensively and very soon), we have weathered this storm extremely well.  Eric spent a few hours cleaning up the yard and helping the neighbor with his yard (we have 3 yard waste bags and the yard waste can filled...and we need more bags to finish cleaning the mess).  Unfortunately, others did not fare so well.  On our drive home from Eric's folks around 6:00 yesterday, we saw houses losing roofs and siding, trees lying all over the place, and debris flying through the air.  We even found a gas station trash can complete with the window washer in the middle of an intersection.  There are people all over central Ohio without power, and AEP is saying that it may take a week for everyone to have power restored.  Can you even imagine? What I really cannot imagine is living on the coast where these storms hit with a greater fury than this mid-western girl has ever experienced.  We got only a few sprinkles of rain, but the wind was amazing.  My kids were terrified the entire time.  One of our elderly neighbors, who has lived in Columbus her entire life, said that she has never experienced anything like this.  Of course we've had winds this high before, but not sustained for such a long period of time.  It is amazing to me, truly amazing.  Weather completely fascinates me.  It has done so me I was a teenager.  I used to watch the weather channel while I got ready for school.  Now I check the weather on line before I head out for the day.  I was fascinated by this storm.  Actually, I am fascinated by any storm.  Does that make me a weather geek?  Maybe so.   At least you won't find me chasing storms any time soon.  I do like to be safe. I took photos around here today, but I didn't go anywhere to take photos of any significant damage.  There are also photos of school stuff, a church outreach event, Lukas' soccer game (you'll notice they're wearing white t-shirts because the rec center didn't order their jerseys in time), and then the Ike photos.  I'll also post a link to the photos one of our local news stations has posted. MY PHOTOS CHANNEL 10 PHOTOS ARTICLE  (OK...so I'm only posting this because the gas station in the photo next to the headline is in Coshocton.  My hometown doesn't exactly get into the news very often, so I had to post it!)

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Comments

16 September 2008 - Untitled Comment

Posted by Anonymous

welcome to a little taste of the gulf coast during hurricane season. I told meg and my folks it was just like being there again! -Matt

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18 September 2008 - WOW!!

Posted by Buckeyeblog

So glad you all are OK!! You neighbor's yard - w/the huge tree limbs down - looks alot like ours. We had SO MANY huge tree limbs down in our back yard, and what didn't have limbs was literally carpeted in leaves...you could hardly see grass. We lost a couple small sheets of siding but no windows or roof shingles. PTL! Our power blinked a few times and was only off in 5 or 10 minutes spurts. However, there are STILL others just blocks away who still have now power! The old historic church we got married in (Ty grew up there and his dad still attends there), in Jamestown (East of Xenia) has a hole in the roof the size of a car! But the steeple and the stained glass windows were spared. Glad you all are well and got through the storm. Blessings, Kim Wolf<><

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