Power outage.

So on Sunday before church we started having some pretty harsh wind. I wasn't till after church we realized the extent of it. When I walked out of the church building I couldn't close the door, twigs and tons of leaves were blowing everywhere. On the drive home we saw a medium sized tree laying across one of the main roads, luckily we had to turn before we got to it. After we got home and laid Garret down for his nap, we noticed the wind was getting stronger and stronger. The sky was very grey, but no rain. Our garbage can, which was almost full, had tipped over, so Brent moved it to the front of the house since the wind gusts were coming from the south/southwest. Then we started seeing small limbs on the walnut tree in the front break off. Again, tons of leaves and in our case walnuts, flying everywhere. Also the neighbors shed was loosing shingles into our yard. Oh yeah and the power went out at around 3 pm. Unfortunately we didn't know how long we would be without power. Brent and I played Monopoly (Brent won as usual) while Garret slept, then played. So at around 5:30 we decided we should probably try and find some food, since we couldn't make what we had planned (electric stove). We went a few places, but the lines were completely out of control. We later found out that about 70 percent(225,000 approx. probably more to start off with) of the Dayton Metropolitan area was out of power, so everyone was doing what we were. It was kind of weird too because the power outages were kinda spotty. Everyone was looking for food, ice and batteries. Some people were going overboard I think, thinking they wouldn't have power for at least a week.

Same thing yesterday, getting breakfast from the gas station, then finding restaurants with power for lunch and dinner (somewhat less people out though). We actually found ice last night, but a little too late for the majority of our cold foods (yeah shopping the day before this happened turned out to cost a lot more then probably not having electricity for 2 days). Well finally today came and we got breakfast at the gas station again, and shortly after finishing it, while playing cards and doing puzzles, the fridge turned on. HALLELUJAH!!! Then I had to clean up the popsicles and ice cream out of the freezer (whoops). So now we have Mickey Mouse on for Garret, man did he miss his show, and I'm waiting for the fridge to cool down so I can return the salvageable items to it.

This experience turned out to not be to bad for us. True we didn't have power for a grand total of 43 hours, but we live above ground for the first time since we have been married, so we just had to open the blinds. Also it was about 65 degrees and overcast yesterday so we stayed cool. I'm glad we got the power back today since I believe its supposed to be a little warmer today with lots of sun. We ended up having a couple of candles, and a really great flashlight. I finished the book I was working on and Garret got to play with his toys without the distraction of the T.V. Garret also got to go ride in the car a lot while we looked for food.

The only down fall is that we have a power pole about 6 feet from the back of the house which is currently leaning toward our house at about a 75 degree angle. It still has a few feet to go before it hits the house, so hopefully they get it fixed before that happens.

We did find out the cause of this horrible wind storm (the worst this area has ever seen, and one of 3 horrible storms in the last 40 years, others were a blizzard and a tornado). Hurricane Ike is to blame, well that and a warm front, which created high powered winds (the equivalent of a category 1 hurricane). Sunday night there were over a million people in the state of Ohio without power. I guess we are lucky since the company that provides our electricity is located in Dayton.

We heard of at least 2 fires, probably more because of downed power lines. There were tons of uprooted trees everywhere. The problem here is that there are so many huge trees that are 100 years old, and have diseases. Our neighbor lost a huge limb off the tree in their back yard, luckily it missed the house. Right before I took this picture they moved the limb, but this is the break spot. We didn't have any huge limbs, just little ones. This is the pile of all the ones that fell in our yard. One of the little trees in the front snapped, but apparently it will grow back. A tree took a power line down around the corner from us, but as far as I know it didn't start a fire (even if it did, there is a fire house across the street from it).

Well this post is quite long so I will just leave you with a bit of Very good news. Brent requested to know his class ranking and he found out yesterday. He is No. 1 with a 3.88 GPA. We are so proud of him.