So Anybody have Power? ...Electricity that is. (Aberdeen, Pacific: power lines, house)

[scirocco22]

*laughs* Well, I was asking last evening in another thread if anybody could tell me what was going on with the Seahawks game and didn't get any responses probably because not that many had power.

All you residents up there be sure to let us know what you went through as soon as power is back on and everything's back to normal. In talking to friends and family there, they hesitate on talking on their cell phones that long because they have nowhere to charge them back up other than going out to their car.

Wind storms of this magnitude don't happen often but I can remember a few as I was growing up. As a kid, I remember the Columbus day storm where there was actually a tornado sited out in Lake Washington. The other big
storm I remember was the Inaugural day storm one January when Clinton first took office. I lost half my roof in that one.

It's unusual for the SR-520 bridge to close so you know that there were big winds ...I think they have to be sustained winds of over 60 MPH (or is it 65 MPH) for so many minutes for them to shut down vehicle traffic over the bridge and open the middle to ease the strain.

Well, when everybody's back online, let us know what you went through!

Okay, more later.

--'rocco

[MoMark]

Watching the news reports of this storm reminds me of the Big Blow of December 1995. I lived in San Francisco then and the wind was incredible, along with torrential rain, howling gusts, downed power lines, and that day 2000 trees were blown down in Golden Gate Park and the Conservatory which had stood intact for 100 years was destroyed by the storm. The Cliff House had its windows smashed in from huge waves that crested along the coast and I remember a church cross on top of a steeple was blown off. That's the day the big Christmas tree in front of the Bank of America downtown was blown over too. That was one terrifying windstorm. Apparently this one that just happened was the strongest one since that storm. Pacific winter blow downs are the worst storms I've ever experienced.

[scirocco22]

Yeah, Mark, what you're describing is what I'm seeing on the blurbs I've seen on the National news feeds.

I just took a quick look on the PSE website and they issued a bulletin describing the extent of their outages. They state that it could even be worse than the Inaugural day storm of 1993. Wow!

They claim that some areas sustained gusts of 70-80 MPH overnight.

I just got off the phone with a relative and he said that it wasn't only the wind but he's never seen the wind and the rain in that combination before. The Inaugural day storm was mainly just wind, as I recall.

Okay, more later.

--'rocco

[ontheroad]

Sure hope everyone is doing okay, power or no power.

Glad I didn't decide to drive up this week, but worried about a friend who is

Take care all, and check in with your "I'm safe reports."

[Ryan]

We had 90/mph winds here on the WA coast. The power was out from 6pm yesterday until 10am today. Expecting snow over the next few days. Fun stuff.

[7.3 Liters]

The Mission Ridge ski area is closed today because of wind speeds up to 135 mph!! Isn't that like a Katrina storm or something? Unreal.......

[jabm67]

We lost power overnight sometime after 1:30AM, but had it back when I headed out to work at 0625. But on the bus ride in we rode through lots of small areas without power. By "small" I mean a few blocks long. Lots of traffic signals were nonfunctional. We've got friends who still lack power who are coming over for a hot shower during the day.

[KidBlue]

Future WA residents were worried about everyone in Western WA. We typically get winds of around 60 MPH and our famous "horizontal" rain pretty much every year. But 90+ I've never experienced. Hope all those wonderful homes in Aberdeen in Ryan's pictures made it OK.

The year before last our neighborhood had many trees down on the power lines and 5 oaks went down just on our property. It was pretty scarey, so I know how terrified you might have been.

I'm impressed how soon you got power back on. We were out for 4 days! Got good use out of the generator!

[scirocco22]

Originally Posted by KidBlue

I'm impressed how soon you got power back on. We were out for 4 days! Got good use out of the generator!

Well, not everybody got power on that quickly. It's Sunday morning and I've been in touch with several of my friends who still don't have power. And they're in relatively densely populated areas on the Eastside.

They've been telling me that there are pockets all over the place where you'll go blocks and blocks where there's no power and then you'll see a few blocks with power.

At any rate, all my friends and relatives who are native residents and been there for all their lives or years and years, are telling me that this is one of the worst storms they can remember ...much worse than the Inaugural day storm. As I've said before in other comments, only the Columbus Day storm of 1962 would be worse than this one in my lifetime.

So as KidBlue has said, those of you thinking of moving to western Washington, don't let this scare you. It's not typical at all.

Okay, more later.

--'rocco

[compltlyme]

Up here on the plateau... we had 90+mph winds and lost power on Dec 14 around 8pm and it was finally restored today Dec 17 at about 10:30am and let me share with you it was COLD last night... approx 25 deg. inside and you could see your breath. And we were running out of firewood with none to be found anywhere!!! By about midnight when we were dressed in just about enough clothing to clothe a small third world country and bundled under more blankets than most people own... I had just about enough! My poor cat with all his fur even was shivering...

and we were some of the lucky ones. We had a camp stove so we could cook and have hot coffee. Even had my Holiday Dessert party by candlelight on Friday evening. The turn out was surprising under the circumstances. Driving around fallen trees and with no streetlights or stoplights anywhere... dodging those that chose to ignore that one should stop anyway. Last night we had a houseful keeping warm by the fire and we laughed so much that I was afraid someone would walk by and think they had passed the "funny farm," and we were all looney.

Now as crazy as it was, and how terrified I was that all those beautiful trees in our back or front yards would break and fall on the house... I still wouldn't trade Western Washington for anyplace else!

I have been in large earthquakes, flooding, tornados and hurricanes... and lived all over this great country.... I'm staying here!