I was fortunate, except for a few brief hiccups (on/off/on), I still have power at my home. Just one block up is a different story though. Schools are closed. There are a lot of downed trees and power lines too. We don’t have cable or internet at the house, though. Traffic signals out everywhere as well.
It really roared for a time last night. We had a tremendous lightning show too.
Hope everyone affected is doing well, considering the circumstances.
I’m here at work. I left in the dark, so I don’t know what my yard looks like right now. I don’t have big trees, but there are several in the yard behind mine.
Leaving work for my 2-minute walk to the bus stop, I was soaked by the time I got there. Crossing the street to catch my second bus from downtown, I was forced to walk through shin-deep water and had to stand in soaking shoes and socks for the 45 minute ride back to Everett (which wasn’t long at all, ironically enough).
Winds picked up huge for us around 9:00. Went to bed around 10:30, only to have my neighbour wake me up knocking on the front door to tell me that the small tree in our front yard had snapped in 1/2, hitting my car. Fortunately, the tree was small enough that no damage was done; although I did put my car in the garage after that one. Another huge branch from a tree in the backyard snapped off, and is now lying there forlornly.
Seems most of south Snohomish county is without power. My wife just called from home (her work was cancelled due to power loss) to tell me it just went out at our place, too.
Just talked to Mom – she said she’d just finished digging out from under all the branches. Roof and cars are fine, but the power is out. She acually got up at 1:00 a.m., thinking it must be morning because of how light out it was. Hee hee.
AMTRAK between Seattle and Portland is shut down completely. AMTRAK is using buses to shuttle people. Portland has more than 180,000 without power this morning. Sporadic outages all over the place. Quite a bit of branches down but no trees blocked my path.
I guess trees make the difference. Around here, 50 mph wind is just a part of spring/fall, doesn’t even make the news. If it gets up to 65 or 70, they’ll mention it
Whew! Down here in Salem, I’ve been out of juice all night. Just came back an hour or two ago. All seems to be well around here.
However, a good friend of mine lost their house to a massive fir that came down. Too bad they’d just wrapped up a 50K remodel… No one was hurt, at least.
No power all night or today at home so far, had to feed the dogs this morning by braille because, after lighting a lot of candles last night, I misplaced the stupid lighter somewhere. Dodged a lot of fallen tree branches on the way to work. Car “tank empty” light was on and it took me a while to find a gas station with power and functioning card-swiper.
Made it into work today. I didn’t see any serious damage, but the roads are slicker’n deer guts on a doorknob. We don’t usually have icy roads here, but I guess the rain that came in last night froze solid. I nearly hit someone while coming to a stop, and I’ve got ABS, 4WD, and good tires… and I drive with the paranoia of a Texan on ice.
We live in NE Seattle - power flickered a few times during the evening, then finally went out for good a little after 10:00 pm last night.
I didn’t sleep much - kept lying there listening to the wind make the house creak and wishing for the power to come back on. Then those times when I did fall asleep I’d dream that the power was back on. When I would wake up and it wasn’t I was devastated.
Was planning to take a vacation day today, but didn’t see the point of using a day off just to sit in a cold, dark house; so we got dressed by flashlight (no showers - electric water heater) and headed into work. Had to drive 1 1/2 miles down 35th ave NE before finally reaching an area where there was power. Saw at least two trees down; one blocking the road (detour necessary), another leaning against a house. Branches everywhere.
Fortunately where I work (University District) and where Mrs. Runestar works (downtown) have power. Light! Heat! Internet access!
Been calling home occasionally; I figure if the answering machine picks up, we’ve got power back. If not, then it’s still out. No joy so far. Not looking forward to coming home to a cold house.
At least we’ve got a gas log fireplace, so we can cuddle up around that. If the outage goes on much longer though, I suspect that all the food in our refrigerator and freezer will have to be tossed.
See, this is why smart cities bury their power lines underground.
We’re now getting hammered by snow. That’s going to make the office Christmas party, held at a resort about 15 miles south of here and about 1500 feet higher, a lot of fun tonight.
Well, that was fun! Everything here at the homestead made it through with the exception of my portable greenhouse–it ended up strewn in a path of destruction four houses down the street with the plastic all tore up. Trees stayed up and the roof seems sound, including the new shed and doghouse roofs we just put on this summer. The neighbor’s shade tree engineered roof job lost some shingles–after watching them work like the Keystone Kops with a nailgun for two months I’m not surprised. The gazebo came through like a champ although one corner of the tarp came loose from the edge of the roof. My grandson is off school today as his school district decided to shut everybody down due to about half the schools being without power. He’s stoked about the hooky day and is going to see “Eragon” with a friend.
Now it’s supposed to get colder with snow possible by the weekend–fabulous! Damned glad I just bought those nice new aggressively treaded, extra siped tires… Might even pick up some chains.
Sons who live in Greenwood and Bothell said things were fine there, they didn’t lose power, no damage. Son living in Redmond said he was awake all night listening to trees falling. His apartment is on the top floor and he was hearing crashing sounds on the roof.
I remember the windstorm that took out the Hood Canal Bridge many years ago – I think it was during the Thanksgiving holiday. We lived on Beacon Hill and our windows were bowing.
Our power came back about 10 minutes ago. It went off sometime between 12:30AM, when I went to sleep and 2:00AM, when hubby called to see if I was ok.
We lost a tree in the back yard, but it didn’t hit anything.(well, the wheelbarrow)
I can hear chainsaws around the neighborhood.
At about 11:00 last night I thought I was seeing lightning strikes, but instead of being followed by “BOOM!” they were closely followed by “GZZZZT!” They were transformers arcing over around the area.
We’re watching the news right now. Wow, we were really lucky.
I think we might be neighbors. We live on Sand Point Way, near 113th. I think it might have been the transformer that serves your neighborhood I heard go “GZZZT!” last night.
Hmmm–it was blue and sunny earlier, then it clouded up and hailed like crazy, the hail turned to snow for a while and now it’s clear blue and sunny again. Truly it is said, if you don’t like the weather in the PNW, wait five minutes!
Wild. The power went out at around midnight, I think. I heard some loud bang outside that woke me up then, and it was all dark. Set my cell phone alarm for 4:30, still nothing on.
Called work and found out they closed down for the day, so I thought “well fuck it, I’m going back to bed. It ought to be up and going by the time I’m awake”. Right… starting at around 1pm power would come on for maybe 30 seconds then go back off. It came on and stayed on at 3-ish.
I really need to be better prepared for this kind of stuff. Hunting for a candle and lighter at 4:30 is quite the adventure, especially with black cats roaming around underfoot. The cold can of corned beef hash was quite good, though, especially after I dropped the log (y’know, like a cranberry sauce log, but beefier) on one of my cats. He didn’t mind.
Roof and cars are fine, but the power is out. She acually got up at 1:00 a.m., thinking it must be morning because of how light out it was. Hee hee.
No one was hurt, at least.