Hurricane Ike's Effects Felt in Southwest Ohio

Kettering, Ohio - It has now been one week since we were hit with Hurricane Ike, so far inland that it would seem impossible. I am one of the few fortunate ones on my street that did not lose power. It only flickered briefly on and off for a couple of hours. The entire opposite side of the street STILL has no power. In fact most of the residences around me still have no power. Went to the grocery today and in a one mile radius many people have signs posted about their feelings towards DP&L. Many people I work with have no power OR water as they are on well systems. On the plus side the company I work for has showers for employees to use and several refrigerators for employee use as well. That took a bit of the edge off for some.

Trees are down everywhere. Many very large and old trees were completely uprooted. The city of Kettering, where I live, is supposed to do a special collection of tree debris this week. It is only necessary to carry the debris to your curbside. Many area residents are running on generators and some are sharing electricity by cord to those nearby. Not really a safe practice but everyone is trying to help out their neighbors. Many homes have been damaged. Some had siding and roof shingles blown off while others have been destroyed by large falling trees.

This damage and power outages have occurred all over the southwest of Ohio. Areas to the north and east did not seem to be hit as badly. I have heard that it was because they received rain during the storm and the overcast effect slowed down the high wind speeds. Gasoline has been a minor issue as well. While driving, I noticed a large number of stations lost power and were unable to pump gas. Those that had power ran out of gas due to the larger demand. At this time it seems like the supplies are stable and hopefully will continue to be.

As I said, I am very fortunate to have power and hope I do not lose it when they finally try to bring other areas back up. That is a possibility because of system overloads. In addition to my full time job I have a small on-line business. Postal shipments seem to be going through well but there are areas where there are slow downs. If you are doing any business with anyone in Southwest Ohio and you have not heard from them, consider that they may be among the thousands here that have been cut off. There is also no cable TV in many areas and anyone with cable type phone service may not have any phone service either. Those with power for television and no satellite service are only able to get a couple of local channels for any news.