Before we launch our Sunday night edition of snow coverage, wanted to mention this – since it turned out to be particularly timely: Saturday morning, hours before the snow hit, volunteers from neighborhoods all over West Seattle got together to test emergency radios that could be used for West Seattle-wide info-relaying in case of catastrophe – the photo above shows preliminary results (broken lines are iffy, solid, better) – here are photos taken before participants fanned out for the actual test:

That second photo is Ron Zuber, a radio expert who coordinated the test (and the one we mentioned on Night Out in August) — that test had mixed results, so this time, they tried more powerful radios. Cindi Barker from the Morgan Community Association reports, “Not a perfect result, but there were enough inter-neighborhood connections that we think we can stick with family service style radios, and that way Block Watch and SNAP groups can hear our communications. Alki and Fauntleroy will be our biggest challenges, we may have to get a repeater to boost the signal all the way from end to end.” They’ll meet again next month to further develop the plan.