Hurricane Survival in the Urban Jungle

[cabenson]

A week ago at this very time, our only concern was the fact that Smokey had a cut on his paw and was bleeding all over everything.And it was a little breezy out. Little did we know that we would face F1-strength hurricane winds for the next 7 hours and lose our power for the next 7 days.



We knew we were expecting some high winds, maybe 30-40 mph, as Ike made his way through. We were NOT expecting Ike to pull down a jet stream of 100 mph to the surface, and rage through the state with 70-85mph winds for seven hours.

We knew we were in trouble when we saw our neighbor's roof take off

She also lost both storm doors- (I held onto one as the wind blew until I could get down to unscrew it trying to save the frame from being ripped out). We had no rain or lightning...just gale force winds.

The damage in our little hood was unreal. We were EXTREMELY lucky-all we lost was our grill lid.









These were within 2 blocks of our home.

We learned that we would be without power for 5-7 days, so we got some essential non-perishables:



Our liquor cabinet was already stocked, we just needed to learn to take our drinks neat.

A few days later, Mrs. CB found ICE!!! so we got stuff to cook out. We were able to eat out a couple times, and we found a small firepit at Lowe's...so Campfire Cooking ala Cabenson:

Making pizzas and roasting corn


My prep area complete with alcohol


Mmmm...veggie pizza


and dessert!!


Friday night we invited our neighbors over for hotdogs and corn:


My Infamous Bundt Pan Baked Beans


Just another Friday night in Columbus, Ohio


Our typical evenings for a week:


We got really lucky, and aside from only missing the internet in the evenings, we got by pretty well. Not that I ever want to go through that again!

We hit the store this morning and have started the slow re-stock of our fridge and freezer. And tonight I am cooking a meal INDOORS!!

Comments

[burningeden.livejournal.com]

I am so proud of you and your frontier spirit. I'm amazed and you need to send me some of those bundt pan beans! I'm damn hungry looking at this.

I'm so glad that your house was spared and you are all okay. I confess ... I was worried to death and refreshed my page a lot to see if you had made contact.

Be careful.
Stay safe.

I'm a fan.

Not to self: if I'm ever stranded ... call cabenson for help. :)

[cabenson.livejournal.com]

Aw thanks. I was a Girl Scout...until I got kicked out. Something about an attitude that was inappropriate for scouting.

I actually considered writing Part 3 to "Darts", but I can't write longhand anymore ;)

The beans were delicious!!

[http://users.livejournal.com/thrace_/]

FUCKING HURRICANES.

It looks like, between the storm damage and the powerlessness, you had a cozy time at least. And I love roasted corn.

[cabenson.livejournal.com]

It could hahve been worse.

[theholyinnocent.livejournal.com]

Thank God for Chex Mix! And yum, roasted corn! Say, that one neighbor of yours looks familiar. I swear I have seen that same brazen female flashing her boobs in New York.

I'm so glad you're all safe, healthy, and happy. You were very lucky, but I'm sure it was very scary and frustrating at times.

[stargazer1960.livejournal.com]

And why, oh why, did she have to include a picture of my ass?

[icarus-abides.livejournal.com]

Ya know, cookouts are way fun. We'll just try to keep the hurricanes out of the equation next time, shall we? (Well, unless we're referring to the drink in which case, by all means...)

I'm rather impressed by your mood lighting though. Seduction at La Casa de Cabenson. Fantastic :)

[darandkerry.livejournal.com]

Damn girl...I know who to call for 'hurricane recipes.' I think I ate one of those jumbo-sized peanutbutters by week's end.

I almost posted a report titled "Nowhere to run to ... nowhere to hide." Apparently, I was right. Even O-h-i-o wasn't far enough to run...

[zuzubailey76.livejournal.com]

That's pretty impressive! I'd definitely want to be your neighbor during a crisis!

Some friends in Canton lost their power as well, but not for that long. I was really worried about my parents -- they are older and my dad uses a cane, so I could just picture him falling down the stairs in the dark, or my mom setting the house on fire with a candle -- but luckily their only problem was spotty cable service. (They were not happy about that, though.)

[lonejaguar.livejournal.com]

Yikes dude! It's so weird that you guys could get such damaging storms when all we got was a little wind and rain. Glad to see you made it through okay. I have to say sometimes it's kind of nice to be reduced to the bare essentials for a while.

[bluepoet.livejournal.com]

This is just crazy! Wow. It sounds like you and the Mrs fared well and were pretty darn lucky. I'm glad you've regained power. There's only so many hotdogs and pizza pockets one can eat.