You may have read my previous post about how Hurricane Ike visited the Cincinnati area, with winds of hurricane velocity. That was last Sunday, September 14. By that Sunday evening, 90% of the Duke Energy customers in this region were without power.
Fast forward to today, Saturday, September 20, 2008. At about 4pm this afternoon, the crew from Duke, reset the fuse on the pole at the end of our street, bringing electricity back to our neighborhood. I was there when they did that, watching hopefully. After the crew cleared the wires from tree limbs and reset them on the pole on our street, they had to go up to the beginning of the circuit, up by Sherwood Elementary school, where my children spent their first 6 years in school. Sherwood is a block from our house, but several miles because you have to drive out of our neighborhood into another. The wonders of suburban living.
Anyhow, after the power crews completed their work on our street, they followed me over to the school to reset their fuses and fire up our circuit. They were unfamiliar with the neighborhood, of course, and I was more than glad to speed things up. These guys were from Sumter, South Carolina, had been on their way to Texas, and were sent to Cincinnati instead. Having been on the road for a week they were ready to get on home, but weren’t leaving just yet.
For me, it’s been a long week without electricity at home. Thanks to our neighbors, we did have a working refrigerator with cold milk, food, and beer. We had hot water, and didn’t need heat nor air conditioning for the week. No TV, no internet, no light to get dressed for school on the dark mornings. No electricity to run our pool filter to clean up our green swimming pool.
Notes From Neal 
It’s been a long week, that’s for sure! Glad you made it through. Our neighborhood was fortunate that it only took 3 days to get power, but we lost everything in our freshly stocked freezer and fridge. *sigh* Still, it’s difficult to complain when I compare our situation to those in the Gulf.
Yeah, that Ike was fierce. My sis in Houston got hers back last Thursday 9/25, although she was fortunate to not have any additional damage. Glad to hear y’all made it through.
Wow, you have been having a time. My brother lost power for 3 days up around Cleveland. I can’t imagine a week without power. You don’t have well water do you? I think that’s what I found so difficult when we were without power for days, no water because the pump wouldn’t work without power. We were using buckets from the creek to flush the toilets. That sucked.
Catty, it was a week without power, but it could have been much worse. We’re in the ‘burbs, so we had water, sewage, and telephone. Our neighbors next door are on another circuit, so they had electricity, and we had a heavy duty and long extension cord. So our freezer and fridge worked.