(photo of official WSB “outages can’t stop us” setup added 11:41 pm)
ORIGINAL 10:46 PM POST: Our power’s out too, but we have laptop power backups and two forms of wireless Internet, so we will continue reporting on the storm and its effects. Can’t see lights anywhere around, for a couple blocks north on California from Thistle, or eastbound up Thistle, or down the hill. Also got a text message saying power is out in North Shorewood. Several other areas posted comments about power flickers shortly before this outage – which followed several LONG flickers (power on for a moment, off for a few seconds, repeat, repeat). More to come. There are numerous outages listed on the City Light page now.
10:58 PM UPDATE: We’ve closed the earlier post; this one will be our overnight storm coverage post, with the power outage the biggest story right now, but also feel free to post about anything else storm-related, and we will add whatever else we find out, too. Hauling out the battery-operated hand-held TV (which won’t work after next month’s DTV transition, darn) to check on 11 pm news. Also got this snow note from Celeste:
A fire truck just tried to go up 40th between Genesee and Dakota got stuck maybe a third of the way up the hill and had to back down and go up Genesee.
TV news just quoted City Light as reporting “four separate outages” totaling about 4,000 customers (hmm, the City Light site lists more than that), with the West Seattle-Burien outage being the biggest one.
11:07 PM UPDATE: The comment section is reporting outage zones faster than we can repost them here, so be sure to keep an eye there too. We’re also watching Twitter; Hopey here in West Seattle tweeted that KING5 reported “a little salt” is mixed in with the sand that’s being used on roads tonight. In addition to what’s in the comments, we’ve received e-mail from the Westwood Village vicinity, where The House is in the dark, and Ann from Full Tilt Ice Cream in White Center tells us friends on Vashon lost their power around 9:30 tonight. Seems a lot of us (comments indicate this too) saw flashes before the outage – if it was lightning, sure didn’t hear thunder. Looks like at this point the south half of West Seattle is hit hardest, generalizing from comments, tweets, FB.
11:40 PM UPDATE: Just stepped outside. Snow seems to have stopped. No rain falling either but it SOUNDS like rain – the snow falling off the branches, slipping off the roof, the branches, etc.
12:04 AM UPDATE: No official outage info yet. Here’s a link you might find interesting if you’re wondering about your fridge full of food (that was our only loss back in the ’06 multi-day outage) – a Red Cross info-sheet we linked to before the windstorm-that-wasn’t last month. A radio report says the outages total more than 19,000 customers (homes/businesses) around the city and may not be resolved before morning. Meantime, a few more photos we were in the process of getting to, before the outage shifted the emphasis away from the snow – this one from MarkB at 41st/Dakota:
From Chas Redmond in Gatewood:
Looking ahead at practicalities for the morning: Metro continues to update its “adverse weather” page with changes; find it here. (We’ll start a new morning-commute post later, but this one will keep going overnight for power updates etc.)
12:40 PM UPDATE: City Light’s update line went through a long list of outages but didn’t list this particular one. So we’re on hold to see if we can get a live person with their latest guesstimate on restoration. Of the ones around the city that WERE listed on the line, estimated restoration time was either 3 am or 6 am. So don’t expect power back on soon.
1:08 AM UPDATE: Good news and bad news. Good news, the plow that Mike mentioned in comments, southbound on California from Morgan Junction, is the big yellow snow-clearing grader that the city started deploying about midway through the December snow – we just saw it at California/Thistle. Bad news, we finally got a live person at SCL who said there’s no specific estimated time of restoration yet for the outage we’re in the middle of (the biggest one in WS). P.S. Radio says more than 2,000 are powerless on Vashon – we mentioned their outage earlier, and have visual confirmation via our “peek view” that no lights are visible on north Vashon (aside from those of docked ferries).
2:07 AM UPDATE: No new word on the outage status. A few more photos to share, though. First, before the snow’s all gone, a few more scenes: First, a snowman by Lauren Jacobs, home from college:
Next, a Japanese maple coated in snow, from Frank in Westwood:
Those two came in earlier tonight — but this one just arrived in the WSB inbox a short time ago, from Karen in Hansen View (south of Providence Mount St. Vincent):
Karen explains:
Was about to call it a night a few minutes ago & then noticed through one of our windows that a giant limb on the neighbor’s birch tree was missing. It had broken off & fallen between our two houses! We have no idea how it did so without anyone hearing it. Amazingly, it didn’t take out our fence & it didn’t seem to damage either house…
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