Yesterday, a storm came through. Knocked some trees down and knocked out power at my parents’ house for 27 hours. Luckily they got a whole-house generator a couple years back, and it worked like a champ.
Dark clouds and rain came in just as I was getting ready to leave work in downtown Akron. I had to run through pouring rain. My car’s windows were all fogged up so I had to wait to defrost them. The rain slowed soon after I got in my car, of course. The highway (Route 8) was going pretty slow when I got on, not quite stop and go but close. Luckily, after a bit, it cleared up, as did the rain.
Traffic on 303 was backed up at spots, but not too terrible. I came upon a Road Closed barrier on Riverview partly across the road near my parents’ turn, but didn’t see anything beyond it, so I went around and was able to get to their house.
The power was out when I got there and I heard the loud generator running. Everything was running fine including the AC. I was able to cook part of our dinner in the microwave. Quite a generator, it made it through the 27 hours with only an occasional dimming of lights when the AC kicked on or whatever.
The cause of the power outage and the road barrier was a fallen tree on Riverview that knocked over an electric pole and attached lines, down near the 80 bridge. I walked down there several times and observed the transformation from a large tree across the road with lines going through it to a cut-off pole halfway across the road with no more electric lines. It appears that they removed the lines to allow them to run power from the other way.
I never saw any of the white First Energy vehicles, but did see the Township maintenance guy and a big orange truck that was probably tree service. I never saw the work happening but saw the results. At least one police officer was down there all day today each time I went. They eventually put up some yellow tape, barriers, and cones down there. They hadn’t opened up the road to traffic as of 7 PM tonight.
My parents’ yard also had some damage. There were of course lots of normal sized branches fallen all over to pick up, including in the drive. But a whole tree fell down on the edge of their ravine in the back yard. Luckily the biggest part is in the ravine, but the part that is sticking out is still pretty big, big enough that my dad doesn’t want to deal with it and just wants to call a tree service. There’s a good length that is at least 8 inch diameter and would require a full-sized chainsaw, which he doesn’t have.
Among the leaves of the tree were a bunch of black-eyed susan flower heads. It was confusing for a moment until I looked at their nearby wildflower garden, which has had tons of susans in it. They had grown 5+ feet tall, but there was a large chunk of the garden that had been sheered down several feet shorter. It was as if one of those microbursts came down right in the middle of the garden and knocked out just that area. Hopefully the garden grows back just fine.
