Nasty in the Nati

So I made it to Cincinnati! It's been a WHIRLWIND of excitement around here.... Last weekend, I was studying at Panera and out of nowhere, the power went out. I figured I couldn't study in the dark and decided to make my way to Target. Outside, there were some strong winds, but I thought nothing of it. 

Ten miles away, at Target, the power was out too. And whatdya know, it just happened to be out at my hotel and just about everywhere within an hour of Cincinnati. The winds were blowing at approximately 70 miles an hour, enough for a CAT 1 hurricane, and the city of Cincinnati went into blackout mode. 

At 5:30, about 6 hours after the power went out, a cop came by the hotel for the third time. He said that 10-12 inches of rain was going to hit in about half an hour. He also said that when (not if) the storm hit, we were supposed to sit in our bathtubs, with the door slightly cracked open to keep the windows from bursting. I was like, "Heh?" I'm thinking, there is no way I can sit in my bathtub for 4 hours with no lights, no cell phone, nobody to keep me company. Also, I was one of two guests at the hotel, and the other one was taking off. I can't sit in a hotel all by myself!!! 

I asked the cop if there was any other possibility. He mentioned that randomly Newport, Kentucky was spared from the power outage and if I could get there in 20 minutes (it's 30 miles away) to get there. I was gone. 

At this point, I had been in Cincinnati all of 3 days and I was lucky enough to have one coworker's number in my phone and even more lucky that he lived in Newport. Also, he happened to be extremely generous and allowed me to come over to wait out the storm. So instead of sitting in my dark bathroom by myself, with no outside contact, scared out of my wits, I played wii, ate chili, and watched football. 

The kicker of it all is that my power was out for 4 DAYS!! My friend, Matthew, was unbelievably kind enough to let me crash for the duration of all the nasty in the Nati.