Hurricanes in Ohio? You gotta be fucking KIDDING me!

So Sunday was different. After finishing up at my parents house Sunday morning (I go there after I get off of work to...basically dick around online) I headed home on what seemed to be your average afternoon. It was cloudy, but rain wasn't expected until later in the evening. I got ready for bed, making sure to take an extra shot of Nyquil since I STILL have fucking bronchitis, and threw in a cd some kid gave me at work. As I felt my self drifting off to the soothing sounds of brutal death metal, the power suddenly went out. Damn, I thought, this cd must be cursed. Then I heard a sound outside of my window akin to someone throwing a bag of nails against the house. Seconds later the power was back on so I re-set my clock and began to drift off again. That is when I heard the winds. They were noticeably more fierce than what I am used to, but the Nyquil was kicking in and there was no turning back. Upon waking from what may have been the best sleep I've had in six months, my roommate asked me if I was home when the storm began. I told him I was but just caught the beginning of it as I went to sleep. "Did we get a lot of rain?" I asked completely oblivious to what went on that afternoon. He just laughed and said no. Then he told me to look outside. What I saw stopped me in my tracks. My nice little suburban neighborhood had been reduced to a mess of uprooted trees, damaged homes, and darkness. My house, as well as a couple of houses next to mine, were the only ones with power. All street lights were out except the one directly adjacent to our yard. Since I was still awakening from my drug induced slumber, my only thought was "shit...stormed like a motherfucker."

On my way to work, the full extent of the days insanity began to ring clear. Town was GONE! Basically the entirety of the city was left in darkness. Including my work. My boss flagged me down with a flashlight and basically told me to hold down the fort until the power came back on. It wasn't long before all the businesses around me had power. Before that, the only light I saw were the flashing red and blues of police cruisers and the headlights of other motorists. Nothing around me was visibly damaged, but trees were basically torn apart and limps, branches, and sometimes entire trees were scattered about throughout town. A few hours after my arrival at work, the lights finally came back on. Soon after that my registers were up and running so customers swarmed the store. To say it was my busiest night at work ever is an understatement. People were coming from an hour and a half away just to get ice, as we were the first town off of the highway that had electricity. It was the customers who told me exactly what went down, since I managed to sleep through the entire thing. Hurricane Ike had ravaged most of Ohio. The majority of people from Columbus to Cincinnati had no power at all.

Typically, when a hurricane makes its way inland, it loses most of its power and becomes a storm cell much like your typical spring thunderstorm. Sometimes it is accompanied by heavy rains, and even tornado like weather. What it hardly ever does is STAYS a fucking hurricane. Well, in many areas, category 1 winds swept across the lands and just fucked shit up. Nobody was prepared, including the news stations as some of them lost power. Many people, as of this writing still do not have power. The electric companies are telling them they may not have any for the rest of the week. Therefor, I am getting my ass handed to me in a plastic bag at work. Most of what I am selling is coffee. I have never worked so hard these past two days as I have just trying to keep the coffee pots full. If this isn't a sign of the oncoming zombie apocalypse...what is??? Fucking HURRICANES! IN OHIO!! Thankfully, the death toll was very low. The only ones who died were crushed by falling trees...which is something I can only imagine witnessing in person. It just goes to show, you can never be fully prepared for everything this world can throw at you.