Just Cured - Experience Fine Foods

Under ordinary circumstances, the first question we ask a dinner guest to our home is “what may I offer you to drink?”† The first question my wife asked tonight’s guests was “would you like to take a shower?”

Our dinner guests this evening were my wife’s sister and her husband.† Their home has been without power for 55 hours.† The second offer we made them was to charge their cell phones.† The third was every (11 in total, 3 badly out of date) D cell battery we had in the house.

For the unaware, Cincinnati suffered a major windstorm associated with the remains of Hurricane Ike on Sunday.† Sustained winds were in the 50 mph range with gusts to 80 mph.† There was virtually no warning of such severe weather.† As of the open of Tuesday’s 10:00 p.m. news, nearly 500,000 utility customers in the area were still without electricity.† Duke Energy estimates that some customers may be without power until Sunday.

The first things to disappear from the market were ice, batteries and gasoline from the few stations that had electricity to power the pumps.† A few grocery stores are fully open; most are operating on generator power that will support a few lights and the computer systems, all perishables have been removed from the cases.† Despite fires in buildings surrounding Findlay Market, the Market House never lost power.† All Market vendors should be open and operating normally on Wednesday.

On Monday, that same sister and her daughter separately delivered the contents of their home freezers to the walk-in freezer at my landlord’s facility.† My landlord loaned his refrigerated truck to his cousins so they could save some of the inventory of their retail store.

Every conversation in this city opens with “do you have power?” and follows with offers to assist in small ways.† Our city’s residents don’t prepare for an event like this; in hurricane zones, residents collect emergency kits of canned goods, bottled water, batteries, battery powered radios and TVs, candles and the like.† As a result, those affected here have limited supplies, and the stores are long sold out of the things in short supply.

At least we have adequate water, cool temperatures and otherwise benign weather for the cleanup phase.

I have felt an amazing sense of cooperation and camaraderie among all I have encountered this week.† I wonder what it would take to make that attitude last a while longer?