Interesting 24 Hours

What do you do when the temperature has been in the triple digits for a couple of days and the power goes out?

You throw everything in the chest freezer with bags of ice and pray the energy company fixes it quick.  Or at least that's what we did the past 24 hours.

Friday around five we had a storm pass through with hurricane strength winds.  The power went out way before the rain ever came.  We actually only got a half an inch of rain.  It was the 75 mph winds that did all the damage.

At first I thought no problem the power will come back on in a few hours and went to check on the garden.  I should have taken damage pictures but most of the garden fared well.  The potatoes and bush beans were completely blown over to the ground.  I put in some supports for the potatoes but the beans I tried fluffing and rearranging hoping they will become upright again on their own.  If not I will get some supports in for them soon.

However a few hours passed and no sign of power was coming so I decided to venture out to hunt down some dinner since I wasn't going to risk opening the fridge or freezer just yet.  As I was out and about one block might look as if nothing had happened and then the next block would be strewn with stray branches and trees that had fallen hitting nothing or in other cases houses and power lines.

Thankfully the storm had instantly cooled everything down and it was actually pleasant again.  We threw open the windows and went to bed without power.  In the morning we woke up in the same predicament and at 9 am with no sign of power coming soon it was time to attempt to save the groceries I had just bought the day before.

Most things in the freezer and chest freezer were still frozen and everything in the fridge was still cool.  Technically the food in the fridge should have been bad but it was quite full so that must have helped.  We packed everything worth saving in the chest freezer with a couple bags of ice and hoped that it would all keep.  Then we set out to find places to spend the day that did have power. 

Our house recieved power around 3pm about 22 hours after it went out.  It turns out there were 176,000 homes in the Cincinnati area without power and tonight there are at least 50,000 still without.  The storm did go through a good portion of Ohio so there are many more statewide still in the dark.

It's funny how much we depend on something and don't realize it till it's gone.  Let me tell you a house in almost 100 degree weather without the ability to even turn on a fan gets hot and uncomfortable extremely fast.  But the night before when it was cool and no one had power to watch tv, use a computer or stay holed up in the airconditioning everyone was outside sitting or porches, assessing damage and chatting to neighbors.  While I'm not happy for the circumstances that caused people to pour out of their homes it was still a pretty cool thing to see.