If you're at home this evening reading this, then just stay there. Don't go out before sunrise unless you have to.
I hadn't realized the power problem is as widespread as it is. Downtown, power is mostly on. There's a couple intersections with traffic lights out, but power never even flickered where I live. Yes, I'd heard the big number of customers without power: I'd simply, mistakenly assumed that most people without power were out in Clermont, Warren, and Butler Counties and across the river.
So I went out to find some fast food dinner. Big mistake.
Power outages are, in fact, widespread in Bellevue and Newport. (That meant that at the restaurants where power was on--McDonald's, Arby's, and Frisch's in Bellevue--lines were interminably long.)
Power in Clifton, at least as of 8:00 pm, is apparently non-existent. And when I say Clifton, I mean Clifton, Clifton Heights, and University Heights (and even into Camp Washington). Widespread outages. There's probably some damage. Police had blocked Ravine Road from Central Parkway, and also McMillan at Clifton. I'm not sure what happened in either place.
Things on the West Side didn't seem much better. There were spotty outages in Queensgate. Further north, power seemed to be mostly out at Harrison near Queen City.
Driving is tough right now. People seem to be mostly remembering their long-forgotten traffic school lesson: when approaching a traffic light that is out, treat it as a four-way stop. The problem, though, is that if you or another driver is unfamiliar with a particular intersection, you might not, after sundown, realize that you're driving through a dead traffic signal.
To sum up: stay home. If you can't, be very, very careful.
And I've emailed family members who live in the Florida area, petitioning them to ensure that in the future, their hurricanes stay where they belong, in the Deep South and the Gulf Coast. We don't send them our snow and ice storms, so they should extend that same courtesy and keep their damned weather to themselves.
