West Seattle, Washington
19 Friday
The past 36 or so hours have been by far the “busiest” ever for the West Seattle Blog Pets page – SEVEN new reports of lost or found pets, including 2 birds. This link takes you right to the lost/found listings; maybe you can help reunite one of these pets with its people.
(Photos by Christopher Boffoli; added at 10:57 pm)
An apartment building at 3821 Beach Drive, according to 911; WSB contributing photojournalist Christopher Boffoli is there so we should find out more shortly. Map here. Thanks to everyone who has texted/e-mailed/called about this! 10:02 PM UPDATE: Christopher says residents reported hearing “an explosion.” 10:12 PM UPDATE: Christopher says fire crews are wrapping up, so not a big incident BUT Beach Drive is closed in both directions at that spot. He also confirms, no injuries. What fire there was, was in a lower unit on the water side (this is a waterfront building), and the person who lives in the unit was NOT home at the time. Christopher reports fire investigators are there now and trying to figure out how the fire started. 10:25 PM UPDATE: One lane of Beach Drive now open. 10:40 PM UPDATE: The woman whose unit caught fire has just returned home to an upsetting shock. Forgot to mention, in relation to the earlier mention that residents thought they heard an explosion, they told Christopher the building does NOT have natural-gas service.
The banners are up for the Seafair Pirates‘ Landing, two weeks from today (July 5th; event details here, including freebies for kids). Further down the beach, we couldn’t get out of the car in time for a full view of that last sunset moment (that’s a picnic-shelter roof in the center of the pic), but it was a beauty:
High tide and sunset were almost concurrent tonight – this table has high tide at 8:56 pm; the sun finished slipping behind the Olympics at 9:01 (by our clock). One more interesting stat (hat tip to The Weatherman, where we found the link) — the “length of visible light” is 17 hours, 20 minutes (scroll down this page to “astronomy” section). And another Alki note – in the WSB Forums, JoB reports seeing a whale (believed to be a humpback) off Alki Point today!
John and Frances Smersh at Click! Design That Fits (WSB sponsor) in Admiral were inspired enough by news of Feet First‘s Cart Project (reported here yesterday) that they’re offering 25 percent off their stylish “shopping trolleys” — provided you mention The Cart Project when you stop in. Full details (and pix of the carts) are on the Click! blog; their hours/location can be found here.
We mentioned here last month that the Westwood Neighborhood Council was looking for drawing help to draft neighbors’ vision of what could be done with the Denny Middle School site when the new Denny is ready on the Chief Sealth High School campus and the old Denny is demolished. The first draft (mentioned at the last WNC meeting; WSB coverage here) is above; click it for a fullsize version so you can read all the descriptions. So far, as reported here, early Seattle Public Schools thoughts on the site have focused on tennis courts and a softball field (
Within the past few hours, Walking on Logs (Fauntleroy end of The Bridge) was decorated in honor of the upcoming Relay for Life-West Seattle, an American Cancer Society fundraiser that involves walking/running around the track at West Seattle Stadium overnight next Friday-into-Saturday. This week, we interviewed a West Seattle couple who’ve been part of it since the event’s inception, and you’ll see their story here this weekend; meantime, go here to find out more about the event, including good times to drop by and support the participants – by cheering and or donating – even if you’re not in the event yourself.
We stopped to phonephoto the Relay for Life decorations this morning while on our way back from Seattle Race for the Cure; that photo shows the sea of people in front of Team WSB as the three of us engaged in our annual tradition of joining the thousands of people who walk on the temporarily carless Alaskan Way Viaduct during the breast-cancer fundraiser’s 5K Walk section. We take pretty much that same photo every year; it’s always an incredible sight. Here’s the view after we got to the Western Avenue end and started back south toward Qwest Field, with some participants still heading southbound to our right:
With all the projects in the pipeline for The Viaduct, we couldn’t help but wonder if this would be the last chance to take exactly this route; it was closed 7:45-11 am for the event and one WSB commenter in an earlier thread said the “Viaduct Closed” signs weren’t working on Admiral – did you see any of them in operation? Just wondering before we check with SDOT on Monday.
Just out of the WSB inbox, from Cheryl Phelps:
The reason for this message is that our volunteer group, puppy raisers for Guide Dogs for the Blind, needs more volunteers. We need puppy sitters and puppy raisers. Our next meeting is at the Hiawatha Community Center at 7 pm Monday evening the 23rd of June. We would love to talk to others about this rewarding service and how it has touched our lives and the lives of others.
That’s THIS Monday night. We’ve added it to the WSB West Seattle-wide Events calendar; if you need directions to Hiawatha, here’s a map.
Since we first published the latest West Seattle Weekend Lineup list on Friday afternoon, we’ve gotten word of a couple additions for today — including one that came in overnight, for the karaoke fans who have been lamenting the closure of the Corner Inn in Morgan Junction (first reported here June 3). Kim N e-mailed to say:
Since the Corner Inn closed down, lots of folks have been upset at the loss of being able to perform karaoke there, hosted by Christopher Mychael (of PCM Musiq).
Well, the wait is over!
Christopher Mychael will be hosting Karaoke this Saturday night (6/21) at The Rocksport! Please come out and support him. If all goes well, there will hopefully be a more permanent schedule there!
P.S. Remember The Viaduct is closed this morning, till about 11 am, for Race for the Cure; that’s where we’ll be for the next few hours.
That’s King County Sheriff Sue Rahr, talking about one of the budget cuts she may have to make if the county’s budget picture still looks ugly by fall; she says the thought of having to stop investigating certain kinds of crimes makes her “sick.” She spoke Friday night at SeaTac City Hall, in one of several public meetings she’s called to talk about potential effects of massive budget cuts ordered by county leadership; the possible cuts in the criminal-justice system could affect West Seattle not only through services the county provides for the city such as prosecution, but also because many of the cuts would have to be made in the ranks that serve unincorporated areas such as White Center, right next door. But the first headline of the night for West Seattle interests was what the sheriff had to say when asked about the jail-sites situation – and that’s where our full report begins;Read More
First: Thanks to Pokey for posting this in the comments section of our last update: The Times says the two 16-year-old boys and one 17-year-old girl arrested in the Tuesday night attack are charged with assault and obstruction of justice, and the one who tried to take away the officer’s gun is also charged with attempting to disarm an officer. Will try to find out what the possible sentencing range would be for juveniles convicted of those charges. Second: The High Point Neighborhood website has posted a statement from High Point (Seattle Housing Authority) management, saying “… the tenants involved … appear to be in serious violation of the lease” and promising “swift action” against those tenants.
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