My family north of Pittsburgh ,Beaver County, lost power Sunday night at 8pm right before kickoff and it might take a week to get it back on.

 

I spent alot of time based out of Cincinatti OH building the OHIO sprint PCS cell tower network. Ive read and heard it did alot of damage to them.

I have a PC parts supplier based out of Ohio that just made it back up today.

My rep. told me that their is millions without power still.

Even thou Im a OKIE I LOVED CINCI and southern michigan.

 

The crazy thing was ,we didn't get any rain,(thank God) just 4 hours of violent wind. With all of the shingles torn off of homes ,rain would have added millions of $ more damages.

 

If you can bitch about it afterwards, then you survived it. And that's a damn good thing.

 

A few years back my area was hit pretty hard with a bad storm. Phone lines and the power grid were knocked out for a week. The outages occurred in numerous large splotches all over the place. I was sitting right in the middle of a 100 square mile splotch. I was sitting pretty with an alternate energy system and stores of supplies, but I did not make it known to the neighborhood. I walked around with flashlights and blacked out the windows if I had to turn on a light or a TV. No sense in having unwanted visitors show up for a free hand out or asking to run an extension cord out my window to their home.

There are two housing developments near me. One has your average middle class country folk, who were reasonably prepared. They had generators, lanterns, flashlights, and grills running in most homes. The other neighborhood is full of your upper class city snobs who moved into the country. They had absolutely nothing! I saw many of them standing in line at the local gas station deli shops ordering sandwhiches for their whole family, day-after-day. Some of them have lived here 10+ years and have gone through numerous blackouts before, but they just don't learn.

 

Well it's 3pm wed. and I have power, but many people in the surrounding areas still do not. Just for sh*ts and giggles, I went out driving around today to watch all of the people scurrying like mice ,looking for ice ,lanterns ,C&D batteries ,coolers(I mean who doesn't have 3 or 4 coolers at their home?). Most of the traffic lights were still out. I saw that China mart in the next town over, had reopened ,so I went inside, just to see the ravaged shelves. No laterns ,very few coolers, no chainsaws, most of the meats and frozen goods had not yet been restocked. However there was a lot of ammunition sitting on a shelf in sporting goods ,so I couldn't resist picking up 1100rds of 22LR hps ,100 rds CCI stinger HV 22LRs , 150 blazer brass 9mms ,and 50 blazer brass .45autos.,and 2 rolls of camo duct tape ,oh yeah and some TP too.

 

I like the funny looks I get when I buy more than the average sheeple consumer does at Walmart. Last week I bought 500 rounds of 9mm and the clerk did a double take. The customer behind me gave me a weird stare. I asked the clerk to double bag it and I was on my merry way. I wonder how much it takes before the clerk calls management? Maybe I'll try someday. :

It kind of surprises me there was plenty of ammo left on the shelves. Usually it is a hot selling item when disasters come.

 

Yeah, a little beeper goes off at the register when handgun ammo is scanned ,and if I have 10 boxes of ammo ,they will ask me 10 times ,after each scan "is this for a handgun". And many times they will ask to see my I.D., I AM 38 YEARS OLD, ok I look young for my age ,but the beard and my salt and pepper hair should be a clue that I am certainly over 21. I have a theory that when the beeper goes off at the register a camera takes a snap shot of the customer buying the ammo. I almost always buy ammo with cash to avoid a paper trail.

 

Well, my electric came back on at 9a.m. Thursday. Lots of wind damage, waiting on adjuster to look at roof. Glad I was prepared. Neighbor let me borrow his extra generator and that saved all the food in the freezer and fridge. I kept a journal of the weeks events and will post it later tonite. Off to work.

 

I live in Cincy and I was amazed by the local radio stations around here. 550am was off the air and 700 wlw was broadcasting the Reds game. Probably one of the worst weather events in Cincinnati history and they were broadcasting a stupid baseball game. This is only one "eye opening" experiences that proves to me that we can't depend on any type of government assistance in the event of any kind of "situation". I am going to start working on procedures for when the ice storms hit this winter and we are without power... again...

 

I was off school for 2 days because of the storm.

 

Sounds like an easy way for a few days off of school.

 

Just got off the phone with our man in Houston (Work). He had just left thr Cy Fair Schools and they were just told they will not have power for at least 10 days. He never has lost power at his place near Katy. WOrd from down south of Houston is that they may never know how many died on the islands. BOlivar island Crystal Beach east was wiped out. Galveston Island had a bunch of people who refused to leave the areas where there were no sea walls. If you didn't have family to report you missing then it may not be known. The way the storm works is the last part is the storm surge coming back out and people just get swept out to sea.

I lived through Carla in 1961. My family thought the storm was coming in to the west (South) of us below Matagorda. It didn't. It hooked back and came in right over Surfside and Freeport. We were lucky. WE had a swamp buggy and got out when the water was already 3 feet deep. WE lost neighbors who would not come out with us. You can't save a fool.

Survival is not a six pack and a pack of cigs. Houston area will be a real mess for weeks. Learn from this.

We are really sorry about how the storm has affected the rest of the country. It points out the need to be prepared all the time. Use you head and get out when the time comes. If you head tells you to leave then do so. REmember the second tower in NY. "Everything is under control. Go back to your offices." those who followed their feelings and didn't act like cattle lived. When you think it is time to prepare do so. Now is the time.

 

Im also in cincinnati my powers been out for 5 days. All the food we had in the fridge is gone bad i had a generator and it broke. Go figure. We have to have all of are shingles replaced are fenced has to be replaced. It was pretty crazy when the wind storm happend everything was out of power you could not get food or gas anywhere. All the traffic lights were out obviously which caused alot of problems i was out driving when it hit i had my camera and have some video i will post when i get the chance. On the third night we were with out power we had people driving around my neighborhood trying to steal peoples generators. On the radio when i was driving in the storm they were saying there was wind gusts up to 80 mph and higher at times. Then the radio stations started going out. It was really weird it reminded me of War of the worlds. I cant even imagine what texas is like.

 

Oh yea there is still 92,874 people in ohio and kentucky without power. They said this is the biggest black out in my reigons history.

 

My area looses power all the time, several times each summer, even more in spring, and occationaly during the winter. It is not uncommon for it to be out a day or more. We have many flashlights.

 

Still 80+ thousand people in the Southern Ohio area without power ,it's now been 8 days and my parents (who live only 5 miles away from me) still don't have electricity. They have been showering and spending time at my house. This event was a real eye opener for people in Ohio ,Indiana and kentucky.

 

We just got our electricity and cable back today.
We got along pretty well, sadly many of my neighbors did not. Lack of food and ice in the local stores caused a lot of problems, also the lack of gas available.
We moved all the frozen food to a friends house, and lived off the garden and the stuff I canned this year, along with our stores of rice and pasta.
Got oil lamps and oil stocked up, so no big deal there.
Keep an outside kitchen using wood and propane, so cooking was never an issue. Heated water over the fire for washing and such.
The kids were getting a bit bored by today, read every book in the house, played all the games ect.... But we didn't have any real problems there, even with 2 under 11 and 2 teenagers. They enjoyed the fact that the school didn't have electric all week, so a whole week off for them.

I looked at it as a good test run. My neighbors were quite interested in why we didn't have to resort to the shelters or friends houses like they did. It also gave me a good chance to see who on my street was prepared, and who wasn't. I was surprised that there were others who stuck it out like we did. It also gives more people a chance to realize that maybe, just maybe they may have to take care of themselves in case of emergency.