High Wind Watch for West Seattle (and beyond)

Unless you moved here after Windstorm 2006 last December, you may be quaking like a leaf in the breeze at the prospect of the High Wind Watch alert just issued this morning — after all, West Seattle got hit the worst in that December-to-remember wallop, with most of us losing electricity for at least a few days. The city promises it will do a better job of getting out information this year regarding when the juice is coming back; crews have also been out for weeks trying to take some preventive action – we saw city tree trimmers along Cali just a few days ago. So get your batteries (laptop too!), your firewood, your blankets, your nonperishable food and drink, and hang on. As for the latest on whether Windstorm ’07 is really on the way, besides the usual collection of basic online forecasts (we like Weather Underground), here’s a great page to watch, with behind-the-scenes talk about what the real experts are seeing: The local National Weather Service “forecast discussion,” updated several times daily.

AMDG October 17, 2007 (8:05 am)

A moving picture tells the likely story…

http://www.sailflow.com/windandwhere.iws?regionID=119&regionProductID=30&timeoffset=-1

jrk October 17, 2007 (8:18 am)

Although West Seattle had it bad, don’t forget about other places like North Bend where they had no power for over a week! We had it bad, they had it worse.

Lets keep our fingers crossed that this doesn’t happen again.

WSB October 17, 2007 (8:39 am)

AMDG — cool link, thanks for sharing it! Jrk — some pockets of WS were out for a week (we just checked back through our windstorm ’06 archives and the last reconnections were happening on Dec. 22, one week after the wind roared in very early Dec. 15) — absolutely some Eastsiders had it worse, but within city limits, WS was pretty much ground zero, with the exception of part of the north end of the peninsula that managed to get back on the grid pretty quick (The Junction in particular; that’s where we and many others flocked for wi-fi, warmth, and food, even as our neighborhood a mile away sat in the dark for four long days). We’ll be keeping close watch on this through the day (and making sure everything’s in order at home just in case).

westseattleite October 17, 2007 (8:42 am)

Be thankful you don’t live where there are hurricanes. My husband and I had no power for almost a month when Hurricane Wilma blew through West Palm Beach.

Sue October 17, 2007 (8:59 am)

I’m definitely concerned, mostly because City Light had admitted a while back that they weren’t fully back to normal after the last one. If that’s true, I think that extraordionary measures should have been taken to make sure the grid was at 110% of what it was before last winter’s windstorm.
We stocked up on firewood – that was our biggest problem last year, lack of firewood during our 5 days without power. I’m in a new place now, so I don’t know what to expect here. Hopefully it won’t be too bad. We have a family member coming in tomorrow morning from the east coast, and this will be a heck of a “welcome to Seattle” for him. Hopefully he won’t be seeing Seattle by candlelight. And fortunately it’s not as cold – I think that was really the worst part of last year, the unusual bone-chilling cold that came with the blackout.

carraignasplinkeen October 17, 2007 (9:20 am)

And the trees near Atlas Place on Beach Drive are even more precarious than before (more development and clearing aside from being on a very steep slope). Let’s hope they don’t come crashing down, again.

MargL October 17, 2007 (10:48 am)

How high were the wind gusts last year? Is this one predicted to be close to the same speeds?

Huindekmi October 17, 2007 (1:07 pm)

The 2006 storm had gusts between 50-80 MPH in the Puget Sound interior. This storm in predicted to have gusts between 40-60 MPH.

The ’06 storm was further exacerbated by the heavy rains of last Nov. We set a new record for rainfall that month. The ground was saturated. Then when the high winds hit in Dec, the trees had less solid footing and came down more easily. Had that same windstorm occurred after a month of normal rainfall, the damage would have likely been a lot less severe. Some trees would have come down and some people would have lost power, but the overall damage would have been reduced and a lot easier to repair.

grr October 17, 2007 (2:44 pm)

lovely. we were out of power for 8 days last time (Thistle St. area). What joy. What fun.

Forest October 17, 2007 (2:46 pm)

I’m in central (not north) Admiral where the toppled trees last December nearly all fell towards the northeast. Was that the case in other parts of West Seattle?