A View From Inside Hurricane Ike

by

Mike Scinto

To say this past week was interesting would be a huge understatement. Our family had to deal with hospitalization and surgery for our daughter, while adjusting to our three-plus days without power. And the power issue is where we’ll journey this week.

Numerous thoughts come to mind about the power situation. First of all, it gives new meaning to the old saying “if you don’t like the weather in Ohio, just wait fifteen minutes and it will change.” I lived that on a soccer field in Piqua coaching our team watching things deteriorate from a little wind into swirling dark clouds and finally Hurricane Ike.

In reality, a category one hurricane must have sustained winds of 75 MPH or greater. We hit gusts of 78 MPH and very high sustained winds, but for most area residents, it WAS a hurricane! Just ask people who lived without power, removed centuries old trees from their driveways or picked up branches for two days.

Okay, so local power companies have never (as far as my meteorologist buddies can tell) had to deal with anything like this. My family has lived in Ohio since 1964, and aside from the few hours Kathy and I were without power while living out in the middle of nowhere (in Clark County) during the blizzard of 1978, we’ve never seen been without power. It is quite a humbling experience.

I’m a “fixer”. I can pull strings, threaten, beg, negotiate or cajole my family’s way out of just about anything. I was unable to do any of the above to get our power back on; and it wasn’t for a lack of trying. I really believe relief efforts showed no favoritism. It was “hurry up and wait” whether you were a bank president or the neighborhood mechanic. I felt neutered.

I’ve never been quite as thrilled as I was when Zak called me and said he was standing in front of the refrigerator at home, with the door open, and it was blowing cold air in his face. We had POWER!

Alright, the fun stuff is over. Now let’s get to the critiques and praise.

There is no way Tipp City Schools should have been in session at all on Monday. Even if the city proper had lights and power, many families in the district didn’t. Many streets with fallen branches, inactive street lights and downed power lines were downright dangerous…..and trees continued to topple over onto roadways. l know at the time classes got their late start power was still out for nearly everybody from Evanston Road to the south, including all of the Deercliff Run subdivision. And, as I said there were still pockets in town, and traffic lights out. Just getting moving in the dark house, with no water, can be a challenge for a family and takes quite a bit of adjustment. A day off would have helped at least.

Local power companies and cooperatives dropped the ball. We pay plenty for our power and there’s no excuse for the amount of time it took to get us back up and running. It was a disgrace. Tipp City Electric was, as I saw it, one of the only bright spots in getting folks back up. I just wish they could have wandered out into the township and helped us out here. My criticism isn’t for the workers who put in long hours and worked very hard, it’s with poor management decisions and not keeping the public informed at all. You were almost afraid to call the utility because you might be bothering them. I had an unbelievably rude response after waiting on hold for 45 minutes. I had a number of others share similar experiences with me. In my call when I said I was just trying to get some ballpark idea on when power in our area MIGHT be up because our daughter was coming home with a pump to feed her, I was told he’s heard “sob stories like that” from the last ten calls he’d received. Before slamming the phone down in his ear I explained how lucky he was that he hadn’t given me his full name or he’d be getting what we referred to “back in the day” as a butt-whoopin’ from me. I had a neighbor who called in to report lines down in an area where there are children playing, only to be told there were hundreds of those calls coming in. I don’t care if these customer “no-service” reps were dealing with irate callers, when I’m sitting in the dark, two days into the event; I deserve some tidbit of information, even if it’s just some slight sound of compassion in their intonation. At least I can come away THINKING somebody cares.

This is a shining example of why we need competition in the field of providing electric service. Companies can provide the power to DP&L to distribute, but DP&L owns the transmission lines over which it’s carried. I can’t start Mike’s Power and Light Company, put up some poles, hire a couple of local school board members to ride a stationary bike hooked to a generator, string wire, buy a couple of trucks and sell you electricity promising superior service. The local power monopolies have that exclusivity. And that’s a huge part of the problem; no consumer choice. Now that I think about it, I’m not too sure those board members could be talked into pedaling that stationary bike if I couldn’t guarantee them a few votes in exchange.....and some of them might need instructions on how to pedal. (No offense intended to ALL the board members….I have one PARTICULAR member in mind)

Several good things came from this experience. In the years of living on our road, I’ve never really ventured down to the “other end” to talk to those folks. I felt like I was in an old black and white Twilight Zone episode as I met some of them as we all chased after power trucks like country dogs running after a passing car. There are actually some nice people living “down there”.

We renewed friendships with closer neighbors, really great neighbors, from whom we’ve been strangers because of today’s hectic schedules and “busy time”. We also found out they’re the ones who’ve been stealing our apples!

We found out we have survival skills we never realized we had. It was Zak who decided to bring in some of those solar lamps from the front walk to give shed a little light in the total darkness of the house.

But I think the thing I realized most of all was just how puny our discomforts were compared to people in the Katrina and Ike paths in Louisiana and Galveston, Texas. They have no homes left, or bail water and sludge for weeks just to get back into their homes. It puts what we went through in real perspective. Sitting in the dark can also give you some introspection time and a time to renew that other friendship that may have been put on a back burner because of our busyness……our friendship with God. In my Faith, it really was talking with Jesus that kept me sane and opened my eyes to what’s important.

Let’s hope when we look back on this we come away with more good memories than bad.

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Mike Scinto is a Radio Talk Show Host and hosts the longest running talk show in Southwestern Ohio. You can catch him weekdays from 12:00 noon until 2:00 PM on 1210-AM. Mike is a regular guest host on the national Mike Gallagher Show and is a contributor to cable’s Fox News Channel. You can visit http://myspace.com/mikescintoshow or email mike@themikescintoshow.com. You can also reach Mike by calling 937-506-4288 and visit his blog at http://mikescinto.blogspot.com .