Remnants of Ike...

I'm writing this morning from work... it is very odd! The hospital actually lost power too and is running on emergency generators. Only essential departments are functioning, and everything that's electrical will only work if plugged into the red emergency outlets. Most of the lights are off, no one can have catscans or xrays, all the surgeries have been cancelled, and I've heard that they may not admit any additional patients. It is extra fun trying to use the restroom in the dark :)

Yesterday after church, we went to meet everyone for lunch. We were pulling into Bridgewater Falls and Ethan was in his carseat babbling to himself and he actually said "Dada"! Ryan and I both looked at eachother like "did he really say that?" We definitely both heard it though! So awesome! It was very windy when we went inside. We were at the restaurant probably 10 minutes and the lights flickered and the power went off. Ryan went home to get Ethan some solids for lunch so he could heat it up in the microwave. Well, it turned out that all the power was out at Bridgewater Falls and the surrounding area, including our house and all the stop lights. So it took him forever to get back to the restaurant, and he did not open the freezer so we could keep everything cold. We had no idea what was coming! We figured the power would come back on, but it stayed off the whole time we were there. We were actually very lucky because their cooktops are gas so we were actually able to eat lunch! The food was very yummy, the service not so much, but everyone was quite out of sorts because of the electricity being out.

We went home and Ryan got some things situated and brought inside so they wouldn't blow over. Ethan and I were playing on the floor in the family room and he was turning and flipping and crawling all over... he actually turned himself from a crawl position to a sitting position which we have never seen him do before!! He sat on the Laugh and Learn puppy so he didn't get to a full sitting position, but if the puppy had not been there he would have been sitting up by himself :)

I called Babies R Us and they said their power had flickered but was on, so we decided to go to Cincinnati Mills for a bit. The drive there was a bit surreal, with no lights on anywhere. We saw so many tree limbs on the ground, and actually a lot of trees uprooted. At the mall, most of the stores were dark and closed, so maybe some of the bigger stores had generators. It was pretty weird walking around! We discovered that only a portion of the stores right around the mall were open. We also drove to Tri-County. The mall and the stores across the street and down to Costco seemed to have power, but nothing else. There was one gas station with a huge line, and police were directing traffic to only let cars in one entrance. We went to West Chester and everything was out at Union Center, at Tylersville/Cox, and all the surrounding areas. Target in West Chester was running on a generator and had very few lights, so we did go in and get a few essentials and some diapers for Ethan since we can't wash his cloth diapers with no power! Coming home, we noticed that the Foxborough subdivision and the little strip mall with Caribou Coffee across the street in West Chester actually had power, which was very odd because everything else around it was black. Any of the few restaurants that were actually open were jam packed, so we headed home to eat PB&J.

We lit candles when we got home and Ethan loved it! He was mesmerized by all the flickering on the walls. I took him upstairs and sat him in his crib while I went to clean his diaper, and when I came back he had pulled himself standing up - for the very first time!! Very exciting yet scary at the same time! When he stands it seems like he could easily flip out, so we knew we needed to lower the bed. Not so easy with no lights!! So we emptied the pack and play and put it in our bedroom so he could sleep in our room, because we also did not have enough AAA batteries to fill two of the baby monitors. I am very freaked about losing all his bottles that I have stored in the freezer. We did not open the refrigerator or freezer at all, and if the power doesn't come back on, we'll move them to Mammaw and Papaw's today. They called late last night and said that theirs came back on, but Mom's has not.

Ryan keeps telling me the milk will be okay but I have worked so hard to make all his bottles! One of the other nurses I'm working with today is also breastfeeding so we have been able to share our concerns with eachother today! We also had to find a new space to pump... we've converted one of the empty patient rooms to a storage room for the refrigerators and to plug in computers and vital signs machines, so we're pulling the curtain closed with a do not disturb sign. None of the bathrooms or our pump room have emergency outlets!

Grandpa had called Duke Energy, and the recording said over 500,000 people were without electricity and it may not be on until Wednesday. I heard this morning on the radio that over 700,000 were without electricity and it may be a week before it is restored.