I can't imagine the aftermath of IKE in Texas. Here in southern Ohio we got strong winds courtesy of IKE, with gusts reaching 70 miles per hour or more and it tore up jack.

Thankfully Miami University's Georgian arcitecture dictates that buildings be masonry and that the roofs are 9/12 pitch. No buildings on campus suffered any damage.

The same can not be said for the 10,000 trees on campus. Over 10 percent of them are destroyed and will have to be cut down. A 108 year old Cyprus that stood 50 foot tall split in half yesterday during a 70 mph gust and slammed into our dorm, causing it to splinter into a million pieces.

Southern Ohio is currently without any power, the Metro Cincy area has 600,000 customers without power. Dayton area has 600,000 without power and Columbus has 300,000 without power in Franklin county alone.

We were without power last night for about 6 hours. It is back on now, sort of.

Duke, DP & L and AEP are telling us that it may be days before power is restored because they sent their repair crews to Texas in anticipation of IKE. Now they are being recalled and we must wait. Luckily Miami has two 16 cylinder diesel generators capable of powering all essential campus services, dorms, dining halls, the student union and the main library. (Internet and Street lights are considered essential here I guess). We are on aux power as of now. Since Duke can not supply us power, all academic buildings are dark and all classes are canceled. If Duke can't get the power back on by 5 today, they'll probably cancel classes tomorrow.

To everyone who has no power, stay safe. Be careful when using candles and the like and consider any downed power lines to be energized and anything touching them to be energized as well.

-the99contour

I'm glad that you survived, I know shaving by candle light sucks and not having hot water, etc makes life a little less than pleasant.

Congrats on the kid, that is if you wanted it.

We got our power back on Tuesday morning at 4:00 AM. Campus power was the first thing turned back on in the county. I think it was partially because of this:

There were Miami University Police, Oxford Police, Butler County Sheriff Deputies, Park Rangers from Hueston Woods and Ohio Highway Patrol Officers on hand to keep things from getting out of hand.

The label riot is a joke, it was more of a sit in by the off campus students who still did not have power but were going to have to go to class on Tuesday morning with no food, no showers, and no way to buy food because no credit card or ATM systems were working.

I was not at the riot, I was typing a paper on my Mac, preparing for the presentation I knew I was going to have to give the next day.

My car was damaged in the storm. A garbage can lid flew off of a stone garbage can and scraped my hood. I took pictures of the damage, the lid off the can next to my car, etc. I'll turn them over to my insurance company when I get it repaired. I'll let them decide what to do with them.

Thanks! Yeah, we were trying for one...

Luckily, my hot water heater runs on natural gas, so at least we had hot showers.

That's funny you mention the credit card machines....before Ike made landfall, I went to the ATM and pulled out quite a wad of cash, expecting that exact situation!

That's too bad about your car. I hope insurances takes care of it!

I wasn't trying to be sarcastic with the congrats. I really meant it, it is just that sometimes the timing just isn't right for kids and having one at the wrong time can be a real unwelcome surprise.

Miami pretty much runs on card services. All the meal plan info, access to the dorms, etc are done via card. Since no where in town takes a check for anything, a CC or cash is a must, and no one anticipated a multi-day power outage from a little wind storm.

My insurance will take care of the car, its leased, so I have full coverage. It really does irk me that Miami's response to my plea to fix the garbage can lids was "well, we're not going to fix your car." They have yet to come by and fix that garbage can lid.

Oh well, I'm sure they have better things to do.