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Things Are Breaking Up Out There
High Water Everywhere
Just a quick note to let those of you not in the immediate Upper Left Hand know I'm okay. It was a nasty night, with winds clocking in at near hurricane-level gusts (69 mph top speed at Sea-Tac Airport - a new record), but I've come through unscraped. Lost a couple of large tree limbs from the tall pine in the front yard, but no damage. The boat came through fine; luckily, because of the SW wind direction, I stayed perfectly in the marina building's wind shadow and only lost a small seat cushion. Power went out at the apartment sometime early this morning, but I was prepared with my watch alarm and a flashlight on the bedstand, so aside from missing my morning shower, things were pretty normal.
There's still a lot of flooding in the lower levels of the city. The 520 bridge, one of the main east-west arterials across Lake Washington, connnecting Seattle with the Eastside suburbs was closed for the morning commute. There's tremendous wind damage: as of this morning, more than one million businesses and households in the region were without power, and we've been told not to expect service to residential areas to be restored anytime soon. Traffic lights are out all over the place, making driving conditions unmanageable in some places, and there are downed trees and utility poles, and damaged buildings being reported throughout the region. Cars were abandoned in droves at locations where the rapidly rising water made passage impossible, and I've seen photos taken in the early evening last night showing some vehicles nearly underwater in low-lying underpasses. Unfortunately, my office was unaffected, so here I am at work.
Oh yeah, and the Seahawks totally failed to secure their Western Conference playoff berth by rolling over to the second place 49'ers last night.
Also unfortunately, a lot of other folks weren't quite as lucky. Our SAG Exec lost a tree in her front yard of the house she purchased just three weeks ago, that fortunately fell toward the street. Our receptionist's son had a tree come down on his house and through his kitchen, but luckily there were no injuries.
So far there have been four deaths attributed to the storm, including one woman, Kate Fleming, a member of the local theatre community and voice-over artist, who drowned when a room in her basement flooded and she was trapped inside, unable to open the door against the water pressure before the FD could cut a hole through the floor above. My condolences go out to her family, friends, and colleagues.Labels: Windstorm 2006
Posted byCOMTE
on 1:10 PM
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