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Neighbors and volunteers lend a hand
Residents coped with the scattered outages and downed trees and power lines with impromptu neighborhood barbecues, joint efforts at tree-cutting along with good humor and generosity.
Addie Vaughn, 57, spent the afternoon on Monday, Sept. 15, with her niece, Sharron Webster, 39, over a charcoal grill cooking a batch of hot dogs and baked beans along with brats for five families on West Grand Avenue who were without power, including theirs.
“We fed extra people yesterday, too,” Vaughn said.
There also was no lack of initiative on the part of Joshua Foster, 9, and his friend, Chris Kirk, 13, who roamed streets near West Hillcrest Avenue off Main Street armed with a shovel and rake.
They wanted $5 each to clear debris, but had no takers by 3 p.m.
“We’re just asking,” they chimed in unison.
Lee Wolf, 2106 University Place, counted himself fortunate that he had power Monday afternoon. His house was undamaged.
A tree fell on a garage next door and Wolf marveled at the force of the winds. “I saw a twister in Indiana,” he recalled. “And this reminded me of a hybrid of a tornado and a hurricane.”
Butler County
In Hamilton, residents of Lindenwald neighborhood worked Monday to clean up the limbs, branches and entire trees that littered yards and driveways following the second weather-related damage there in less than a month.
The remnants of Hurricane Ike toppled a mammoth Maple tree in Stanley Miles’ Pleasant Avenue yard, sending it crashing down on a chain-link fence shared with neighbor Earl Donges.
About half a dozen volunteers spent several hours in the parking lot of Lindenwald United Methodist Church Monday afternoon working to clean up the six Bradford pear trees and two Maple trees that fell, knocking down a power line and making Hayes and Arlington avenues impassable Sunday.
Motorists waiting to fill their tanks at Meijer on Main Street in Hamilton were anxious about the power outage, but in good spirits, despite spending 30 minutes or more in line.
Homemade cookies were handed out to motorists while they waited in line by Clark Baker, pastor at Abundant Life Apostolic, 590 Hamilton Richmond Road.
Baker said the cookies were made for a church bake sale that was cancelled Sunday because of the wind storm.
Phil Vanselow of Seven Mile got out of the family van to stretch his legs while his wife was behind the wheel creeping closer to the gas pumps.
Vanselow said his neighbors were planning a big cookout Monday instead of tossing away hundreds of dollars in groceries.
Dealing with the power outage at home meant using a propane stove, flashlights, candles and about anything that lit up, Vanselow said.
“We pulled out some battery-powered Halloween decorations that light up. There’s one in the bathroom that’s blinking,” Vanselow said with a laugh.
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