W.O.F. 30 Ike

This week's weird object was huge - hundreds of miles wide - but, thankfully, is no more. I'm talking Hurricane Ike, the one that rolled through a week ago and did a lot of damage.

We live in northern Ohio, and we got to experience a hurricane last weekend. Ike blew right up through the North American continent and treated a central slice of Ohio to sustained 65 mile per hour winds, for hours and hours - most of Sunday. Thousands in Ohio are still waiting for power to be returned. I mean, when you live in northern Ohio, you tend not to think about hurricanes as a danger. Tornados, sure; hail, blizzards, plagues of locusts---but not hurricanes.

We were taking our son back to college - Linda, me, and the dog - down in central Ohio Sunday afternoon, oblivious of the weather forecast - until we noticed the corn husks blowing horizontally across the roadway. By the time we got near his home, traffic lights were out. In his neighborhood, several trees were down and one tree had taken out the front of a house. His house was in fine shape, although there was no power (they finally got it back last night; they had transferred food to friends' apartments, and presumably went elsewhere to use their laptops).

We didn't hang around long; headed back out with plans to return by I-71, since the traffic had backed up at the non-functioning lights along our usual route. Then I noticed the needle on the gas gauge near "E". This was interesting, as every exit along I-71 had the same thing. Gas stations with no gas to offer since the power was out, but people pulled up to the pumps anyway since they were basically out of gas and going nowhere. It was eerie.

Linda got into the convenience store at a Speedway station that had no gas, up toward Mansfield, and bought anout ten packages of crackers with peanut butter. She was figuring this could be supper and breakfast for us (and the dog) in the worst case. The guy working the "register" was logging in all the purchases by hand with a pencil, bar codes and all, and after he had had about all of this he could stand, he closed the place. So Linda, bless her heart, bought more crackers than we needed and went out to the pumps, from car to car, asking if anyone wanted to buy a pack of crackers at cost. She had at least two takers - people who were traveling with diabetics who needed something to eat.

The guy who was closing up did us a service and called some gas stations up in Mansfield - and the word was a "Duke and Duchess Shop" on Route 13 was still open. So, with the "out of gas" light blazing, we scooted on up to see the Duke and Duchess. We made it fine, and I have never been so happy to buy a tank full of $3.99 gas (Actually, I have never, ever been happy at ALL to buy $3.99 gas before this). We got home, found our ancient maples on the tree lawn to still be vertical, and cleaned up a few branches. Most of our town was spared; only a handful of trees down, and power, cable, and phone service operating.

So, Ike, this WOF is for you. You made it interesting, but please don't send any of your brothers or sisters our way, 'kay?

PS- I'm guessing that WOF blogger Pigeon may have her own Ike stories to tell...she's been without power...