Hurricane Ike = Tri-State Blackout

Sunday after church Matt and I headed to Chipotle with some friends for lunch!  We were enjoying our lunch when we noticed the wind picking up quit a bit!  Before church Matt had turned on the news to see a major storm heading our way but wouldn't be here til 3pm.  We finished up lunch and headed home!  The wind was so fierce tree limbs were blowing past us, traffic lights swinging violently from their wires, and trees were falling before our eyes!  I was praying the whole time that nothing would hit our car.  We got home right at 3 and of course the power was out!  There was no rain or thunder just gail force winds!  It reminded me of hurricane Elvis that hit Memphis some years ago now!  We noticed alot of our neighbors were losing shingles and we were praying we would not have any damage!  A couple hours after we got home we heard a loud noise and discovered two of our shutters had fallen!  Thankfully, that is the only damage done to our house!  No tree damage, praise the Lord, and no other house damage!  

Cincinnati looks like it has been hit by a tornado but in fact it was a hurricane, how strange!  The worse part of the whole thing has been the over 800,000 people and businesses who are out of power.  Duke Energy had sent lots of their trucks down the Houston to help with Hurricane Ike so Cincinnati was blindsided by the crazy wind storm.  Duke has called in trucks from North Carolina and up state New York!  Many counties around us have declared a state of emergency!  It so wild how crazy people go without power!  

It's day 3 for us and we still don't have power.  Thankfully it hasn't been to hot so the first night we slept with the windows open and were comfortable!  Yesterday was cloudy and pretty cool!  What a blessing to have nice weather during this time!  Last night we decided to go ahead and clean out the fridge so it didn't smell and nothing leaked!  Our freezer is now completely empty and the fridge only has water, apples and jello!  So strange to have no food or anything cold in the house!  This morning I went to Panera to grab a bagel and some free WiFi but they were out of bagels except for plain or asiago and their server was down and would probably we down the rest of the day!  Gas stations are running out of gas and there is no ice in the city to be found!  

We have been going to lifetime fitness to take showers!  Thank the Lord they have nice showers and hairdryers!  I'm so thankful we are members there!  Matt was off work yesterday since the power was off at GE and they had no water!  He was grateful for an extra day off!  He's back at work today!  A lot of our friends have power and have been super generous!  We are optimistic the power will come back on today or really soon!