Two more holidays to go
At WSB HQ, the holiday season isn’t considered over till the Super Bowl party. So there’s more than a month of fun left. In the short run, New Year’s Eve is just days away. We’ve got some of the local festivities listed on our Holiday Stuff page (which otherwise was emptying out now that all the pre-Christmas excitement is gone) — including a few that sound 100% family-friendly. And of course, non-official festivities will be numerous, especially the gatherings at Alki, Seacrest, Don Armeni, and other prime spots to watch the Space Needle fireworks. The forecast so far is a little vague, so here’s hoping for a beautiful night.
… and to all, a good night
You hear claims that Seattle is more “unchurched” than other major U.S. cities. Yet somehow, at least for the major religious celebrations, we Seattleites manage to fill the pews, if we so choose. Example in point, Holy Rosary 4 pm Christmas Eve service tonight, overflow SRO crowd by quarter till. Speaking of HR, its former pastor Father Jeffrey Sarkies continues to blog at least weekly, beautiful musings (as we’ve mentioned before) on faith and humanity, among other things, and we found his Christmas Eve message particularly touching. (Checking links for this post, we learned Fr. Sarkies moved to Arizona last month, after a surprise going-away party here in WS. Godspeed.)
Thank you
We started WSB exactly 1 year ago, Christmas Eve morning 2005, so we’re taking this occasion to thank you for stopping by, and also to offer special thanks to the folks who take the time to send us e-mail or leave comments with observations, opinions, tips, whatever. We’ll save the “year in review” for next week; for now, a very merry Christmas Eve to you!
Seen around WS on Christmas Eve-Eve
-First, the non-merry note: After just 6 months, looks like Al’s Cafe & Espresso on Cali Ave north of Morgan Junction is out. We thought it seemed odd this morning to see it closed this morning when we stopped by during prime coffee time to check on its Christmas hours; drove past this evening, suddenly the sign’s gone from its window, and a light inside shows the place pretty much stripped bare. Tough location, with so much so close right at the Fauntleroy/Cali crossroads.
-Now, the holiday cheer: One more light display to recommend — 56th & Alki, Santa in the front yard on a brightly lit replica of construction equipment (with a sign for a construction company cleverly placed beneath it). And at 42nd & Raymond, we passed a parked pickup truck with HONK IF YOU LOVE SANTA written big and bold in the rear window.
-Just ’cause the power’s back doesn’t mean City Light crews’ work is done … saw a truck in action after 8 pm tonight, back at the scene of The Tree That Blocked Fauntleroy.
Tidings of great caffeine
So many Christmas mornings in the past, we sneaked away to seek the ol’ triple-tall, and wound up on a long, desperate, almost comical search. So this year, in our own self-interest as well as that of any other Christmas caffeine-seeker who stops by this page, we have visited or called just about espresso establishment in West Seattle to check Christmas Day plans, and here’s who will be open on Monday (bless your hearts and here’s hoping the tip jars overflow): On Christmas Day, Diva will be open 8 am-1 pm; Caffe Ladro will be open 7 am-noon; both Tully’s WS locations, 8 am-2 pm; M-Junction Starbucks, 7 am-4 pm.
Now it all makes sense … in a way
Just watched our recording of the Seattle City Council briefing with key bureaucratic types talking about the storm response. (We’re STILL waiting to hear … where is the mayor? He wasn’t even at this event; nor was the deputy mayor; a woman “from [his] office” was their delegate.) The P-I has posted its article but it doesn’t mention the most surprising thing we heard: City Light does NOT automatically know who’s got power and who doesn’t … its customers don’t have automated meters, hooked up straight to HQ, though City Light boss Jorge Carrasco mentioned a “pilot project” along those lines in High Point right now. The briefing also revealed the councilmembers got a surprise during the storm aftermath, finding out they could have been getting info for constituents by accessing some sort of web page on the city system listing all known outages. “I didn’t know you didn’t know about it,” Carrasco said, “but … you do now.” Nervous laughter ensued. One council member tried to ask why members of the public couldn’t have been allowed access to that page too, so at least they’d know their outage area was on “the list”; Carrasco’s answer seemed to boil down to, well, that page is MANUALLY updated, and maybe not entirely up to the minute, so putting it out there might have done more harm than good. (What do you think? When is more information worse than less? If you want to tell the council yourself, their public hearing on all this is 5:30 pm January 3rd.)
Not exactly the calm after the storm
We were going to say that driving around WS tonight was “normal” — no major lights out, etc. — for the first time in more than a week, but the pre-Christmas craziness is making up for it. Crowds galore. Good for our local businesses, at least.
In post-storm notes … got e-mail from the office of local County Councilmember Dow Constantine (while Seattle City Councilmembers aren’t elected by district, King County Councilmembers are), saying he’s pushing for a “formal council review of the local response to (the) windstorm.” As for the city, haven’t seen anything yet about the outcome of today’s “briefing.” The video is now posted on the Seattle Channel site (with an ironic disclaimer about “diminished” audio quality because of an “unforeseen technical problem”).
Today’s storm-aftermath photo: proof some of the fallen trees in Lincoln Park are being cleared away; we spotted this pile in the central LP parking lot.
More lights re-lit; but what about the WS sinkhole?
-E-mail tip says the Delridge lights (Brandon & Orchard) are finally back on. Will spin by post-dusk to see about the nearby businesses.
-Now that the power-restoration work is almost done, what about some of the other damage? We’ve seen city Transportation Department crews out taking care of some of the worst potholes. But what about the Thistle/Northrop sinkhole (which looks the same today as when we took the photo below, a couple days post-storm), which happened even before the wind hit full force last week? It’s still roped off but not so securely that a wayward child or animal couldn’t fall in. And how about the nearby stairs (built in 1955, according to the city photo archives), so well-known they’ve been written up for fitness fans? We’ll see if we can find anything out from the city; let us know if you live near there and you’ve got any scoop.
Midday updates, 1st Full Day o’ Winter
-The traffic light on Fauntleroy at the west edge of Gatewood Elementary is finally back on. Hope that’s good news for some of the pockets in that area.
-Lots of City Light crews on duty around WS today — could barely go half a mile without seeing more. Also interesting to pass City Light home base (on 4th just a bit north of Costco) and see the constant activity there.
-Update on the John’s Deli cow/bull/steer/bovine-whatever, courtesy of a comment on the original post: It did blow off during the storm but will be back. Hurray!
-Heard a good discussion on KUOW’s “Weekday” week-in-review hour while out and about (now available on the station’s site). One caller from the Eastside made the same point we and others had put forward: Yes, we know the mayor/governor/county exec can’t personally restore power, but having them out in the storm-disaster zones a lot sooner, doing the Clintonesque “I feel your pain” thing at the very least, would still have meant a lot. (The same caller also had the same observation about those leaders’ websites – not enough statements/info about the outages – suggesting their communications staffers might have been assuming, hey, if they’ve got no power, they’ve got no internet. We can testify to the fact that local coffeehouses were stuffed for days with folks who had no power at home but found a way to get online. Also keep in mind, those with power can call friends/relatives without power and tell them what they’re reading about what’s going on.)
Christmas interruptus
Anybody else feel like the storm, the resulting outage/damage/whatever happened at your place, and the ensuing uncertainty all took a bite out of the pre-holiday runup? By the time we finally got a chance to do a little shopping last night, the stuff our favorite gift recipients really wanted was gone. Sigh. And maybe today we’ll finally get the Christmas lights up. Not too many, don’t want to overload the grid. Speaking of which … City Light’s morning update says it’s down to 1,400 customers, and if you’re one of them, don’t assume they know you’re out, give them a call to be sure … 684-7400. P.S. When this is all over, it’s really going to be worth celebrating New Year’s, we think. So we’ve been collecting info on NY’s Eve events on our Holiday Stuff page, with several new additions last night; check it out.
The biggest “pocket”?
That stretch on and near Fauntleroy, southwest of Morgan Junction, is still out, and now the City Light contingent is gone. One more pocket-let further east appears to be back, though — we just saw outdoor lights on at some of the Webster homes whose residents had been checking in with us (hope it’s good news for ALL of you). Another late-night note: Even if all’s well with your power supply, the city now wants to hear from you about damage to street signs and traffic lights. The phone numbers are here (though, oddly, no e-mail address or web form, which would seem more useful).
There’s hope!
About 1,000 City Light “customers” got their power back today, according to a 5 pm radio report that puts the total number remaining at 3,200, and we just confirmed that at least two WS pockets are finally back — 57th off Alki, and that south section of Beach Drive. Passed two major deployments of City Light crews — one at the Beach Drive spot where a tree had blocked the road, the other on the Fauntleroy curve just southwest of Morgan Junction (we never did get around to putting up our weekend photo of crews taking on the tree that caused so much trouble there, so it’s below this post). One troubling spot where no progress is apparent — Delridge at Orchard; two gas stations and a few other businesses still dark, along with homes around them (north of there, Delridge/Brandon is still out too). One last note — a reader who wrote to Councilman Richard Conlin, who heads the committee that’s in charge of utilities, was told that besides the council meeting with City Light and others tomorrow morning, Conlin also is promising a public hearing on Jan. 3.
MIA (missing in aftermath)
Commenting on a post below, a reader asks a question that also occurred to us while checking out the “Webster pocket” earlier — what happened to the cow bull atop John’s Deli at 35th/Webster? Storm casualty, put away for safekeeping, or … ? If nobody out there knows, we’ll check. In the meantime, heading out for our early-evening pocket survey (even after so many years up north, it’s still weird to call 4:40 pm “early evening”).
Thought this was supposed to happen LAST night
Pounding rain, dark sky. Hours after a sunshine break. Only quarter till 4 and it’s almost dark enough to get a status check on the remaining WS pockets. No update on the City Light site since this morning. But another gov’t agency, the National Weather Service, wants your help … choosing a name for the storm. (Wind Wallop? Holiday Hell?) And in government-leader news, heard a radio report that Gov. Gregoire and County Exec Sims toured powerless Eastside spots today. Her home page currently headlines a “weather update”; his home page has one high up (but the headline story is still him getting an award); still waiting for word on the status of our mayor, whose page is topped with “emergency preparedness tips.”
Crew sightings, plus a little humor
-As of a few minutes ago: 2 City Light trucks still working at the Morgan Substation, same number at 31st/Kenyon (can only hope that’s good news for the “Webster pocket” nearby).
-If you are in any mood to attempt to laugh about this whole mess (heaven knows WE weren’t until after yesterday’s re-outage), Seattlest points us all to a drily amusing YouTube clip (note the apparent backstory about some people pretending to blame all evils on the recent Google/YouTube, aka GooTube, deal). Subsequently checking YouTube, we found more attempts at outage-related humor, such as this brief bit about the terror of techlessness.
Back from the pockets
Here’s what we saw: City Light truck briefly stopping on Webster, east of 35th; no crews seen in or around the Fauntleroy/Raymond pocket; a City Light crew parked briefly on Cali near Thriftway, sipping coffee and looking world-weary; plenty of activity near the Alki pocket (along 57th), where we snapped some of the out-of-town crews hired to help City Light (this one is from WAY out of town, note the locale scrawled on the truck’s side):
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