Hurricane Ike: Kicking Ohio's Ass

What do you get when you combine:

many big old brittle trees
70 mph winds

One day without power, three weeks with no phone and no internet, that's what. It really reminded me of the situation in Virginia when we'd get big snowstorms. No one knew what to do or how to do it, so we wound up sitting around for quite some time before the streets got cleared and it was possible to go outside again.

We were lucky--many people were without power for almost as long as we were without internet. You just don't *get* 70 mph winds in Ohio. Well, unless it's a tornado, which is an entirely different sort of problem. Tornadoes tend to be localized. They don't knock out entire states.