Ike Strikes
September 16, 2008
Posted by Dan Edelen in : Announcements, In the News Functions : Trackback,
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On Sunday, southwestern Ohio was hit by 75 mph winds. The Greater Cincinnati area, oddly enough, has the weather system of the southern United States, making it unique from the rest of Ohio. Weather patterns rise up out of Texas and eventually form our weather. Well, Sunday was the trailing arm of Hurricane Ike, and we got hit hard.
Just as the windstorm dissipated around 5 p.m. Sunday, my town lost power. The entire corridor along Route 32 coming out of Cincinnati to Sardinia was blacked out. So was the large portion of the rest of Cincinnati. At one point, nearly 700,000 customers were without power.
Because Duke Energy had sent crews out of town to deal with other storms in the south (as part of benevolence missions), our area was light on support. Some are saying that other parts of town may not see power until the weekend. Fortunately, my town got our power back just before 8 p.m. Monday evening.
So that’s why you couldn’t find my regular Monday post.
Be praying for all the people affected by this storm. It’s just another reminder that proper prep is essential to surviving. And yes, I’ll be writing about that reality in days to come.
Tags: Cincinnati, Electric, Electrical, Ike, Ohio, Power, Windstorm
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We Southerners prepare with the four G’s: God, grub, gasoline, and guns! YEE HAW!
You’re falling into Obama’s trap: Bitter small town people clinging to religion and guns…
David,
I think my town’s been bitter ever since the local grocery store stopped carrying SKOAL.
See, that’s what’s wrong with American business…bypassing the obvious profit centers for more esoteric brands. I bet they SKOAL it with HintMints, or something…
Ha, when I worked at a gas station, one customer stopped shopping with us when I did not sell her the latest date of Copenhagen. My bosses did not stay on top of Copenhagen sales and lost all of those customers. Then potheads who bought Dutch Master cigars got in fights with customers who would spend more money. I told my bosses that the little money we made from cigars would not replace customers frightened away by mentally ill gangbangers threatening to shoot people who asked them to turn down their car stereos.
Michael,
Sounds like paradise.
As opposed to what? Bitter inner-city people clinging to their religion and their guns?
Michael,
But you forgot one B: beer.
I guess it could be a G if it was Guinness, but I don’t know too many Southerners out on their front porches pickin’ the banjo and sucking down a cold Guinness or five.
After watching stocks drop 500 points yesterday, coupled with the millions spent to rescue people who ignored evacuation orders and then called for help in the middle of the hurricane, a very un-Christ-like thought occurred to me: Why am I paying for other peoples arrogance and pride? I refuse to put it down to “mistakes” or “errors in judgment” on the part of those in need.
But on an eternal note: God won’t send helicopters after the end comes.
David,
As much as I scratch my head at people who continue to live in floodplains and hurricane-prone areas, there’s really not a place in the US that is immune to natural disaster. My area of Ohio has been hit by devastating tornadoes at least three times in my lifetime. Tremors from an earthquake in Illinois a few months ago caused the shelving to collapse in my bedroom closet. We get flash flooding all the time, too. Drought can strike anywhere (we had one last year), earthquakes hit many spots in the country, as well as floods, blizzards, landslides, forest fires, windstorms, lightning strikes, tornadoes, avalanches, hurricanes, hail…whatever. We have to trust God’s providence and protection.
I agree that disasters can strike anyone, anywhere. It’s not so much the where that bothers me, as the how. People don’t prepare for the inevitable, even when given fair warning. “Yep, there’s a hurricane a comin’, but I think it won’t be bad, in spite of the warnings of people who study the things, so I’ll stick it out.” I watched one woman explain that she didn’t think Hurricane Ike would be bad because she never got a tingle in the back of her neck. Now her belongings are spread along 20 miles of Galveston Island coast. The fact that the National Weather Service told people directly that they would face death if they did not evacuate somehow doesn’t count.
Living in Tornado Alley? Build to withstand 400 mile an hour winds. Living near the San Andreas? Build to withstand a 9.5 with multiple aftershocks in the 7’s and 8’s. Live on a floodplain? Don’t use gypsum, and build on stilts. Area prone to drought? Grow more than you need each year, manage soil erosion, plant appropriately, and use spreader dams. Is your area prone to wild fires? Clear the brush around your home, don’t plant Eucalyptus, and make sure your roofing material is fire retardant. Live where it snows? Make sure your roof can handle snow loads of upwards of 20 feet, and have warm clothes in the closet. Is it forecast to rain today? Carry an umbrella. Are all your retirement funds in one basket? Diversify! In all cases, have an evacuation plan ready: From your home, from your neighborhood, from your city, from your State.
Prepare, in other words, for the inevitable. Pray for God’s protection, yes, but don’t tempt fate and then be disappointed when it turns and swallows you whole. As believers we can be protected from snakes, but that doesn’t mean we use them in worship just to “prove” that protection. (Well, most people don’t) Yet otherwise sane people do the same thing all the time: Driving through life like maniacs with “God is My Co-Pilot” on the bumper.
Thimk!
David,
There are a million ways in which I would like to be more prepared. My wife and I moved into our home seeking to get off the grid, but continued economic woes have curtailed almost every plan we had. I had planned to setup a windmill, solar panels, and a solar engine, but one crippling blow after another killed all those plans. In short, we saw the tsunami coming years ago, but still have not been able to outrun it. Instead, we were forced to watch helplessly as the very resources we needed to stay out of harms way were taken away from us.
Talk about a powerless and crippling feeling.
Now don’t you wish you had never left California? Seriously, I have thought of moving elsewhere because of the financial strain living here in S. Cal. But God just will not release me. So, I guess I will have to live through the sunshine, the infrequent earthqukes and the laid back life for a little longer.
Diane,
When we lived in Sunnyvale, CA, we had a tornado strike the town, got a thunderstorm with hail, flooding, earthquakes, heatwave, and drought. That was in 3.5 years. I guess we brought the worst of the Midwest weather with us!