West Seattle Weather Watch: “In case of windstorm” essentials

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…A MAJOR DISRUPTIVE WINTER STORM WILL AFFECT MOST OF WESTERN WASHINGTON LATE SATURDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH SUNDAY… A STRONG FRONTAL SYSTEM WILL SPREAD PRECIPITATION INLAND OVER WESTERN WASHINGTON STARTING SATURDAY AFTERNOON AND CONTINUING THROUGH MUCH OF SUNDAY. A COMBINATION OF BLIZZARD CONDITIONS… HEAVY SNOW…STRONG WINDS AND ICE BUILDUPS ARE EXPECTED.

Still suspect that weather warning will turn out to be for naught? Don’t count on it (although this is NOT expected to be among the windiest areas). If you’ve been in West Seattle at least two years, you know what a windstorm can do. Browse back through our coverage of the December 2006 windstorm, archived here; we were just starting to cover neighborhood news at the time, so our coverage then was nothing like what it would be now, but you can still get a sense of just how serious it was. Much of West Seattle was without power for days; more than 3 days at WSB HQ in Upper Fauntleroy, though we still were lucky, losing no more than a fridge full of food and “Psycho Pleco” the pet fish, while some elsewhere lost their lives. Anyway, that whole ordeal leads us to take the prospect of wind TREMENDOUSLY seriously.

First, the official information from city webpages:

Preparation advice here
(206) 684-3000 to report non-life threatening problems with power, water, sewer or drainage
Food, shelter and other human services: 2-1-1
Falling Trees that are endangering public roadways or power lines: 206-684-8733
Roadway obstructions (SDOT): 206-386-1218
Traffic signal problems (SDOT): 386-1206
Landslides: 206-684-8950
Electrical outage hotline (after 6 pm) (Seattle City Light): 206-684-7400

Live Wire Warning
Keep your distance from any downed line. Anyone seeing a downed line should immediately report it by calling 684-3000.

Darkened Intersections
Treat all darkened intersections as a four way stop and to be cautious of drivers who may not stop.

Apartments without Fire Alarms
Apartment buildings without power for prolonged periods of time will lose their fire alarm systems and should conduct a fire watch to keep residents safe.

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning
Do not bring barbecue or other open flame sources into the home. The smoke from open flame indoors can lead to death or injury from carbon monoxide poisoning. For more information: www.kingcounty.gov/health.

UNOFFICIAL:

What to do about that fridge full of food, if IT happens? Red Cross tip sheet here (wish we’d had that in 12/06)

Where do you go if the power goes out and you need to warm up? WSB Forum members asked that question; so far, we do not have an official answer, but we can tell you that the city generally points people to community centers. In the 2006 outage, Delridge and Southwest Community Centers were opened as “warming centers.” Generator availability is key – we are hoping to hear from the city about which facilities have them. In the short run, in case information is impossible to come by and you just need to go SOMEWHERE, here’s the city webpage with all community centers – find your nearest one and know where it is.

Charge everything now – and have a backup for if/when that runs out. You can buy battery-powered chargers and hand-crank chargers.

As mentioned above, we lost a fish. We didn’t even think in advance about how he would be affected by loss of his tank’s heater. If you have fish, reptiles, some other kind of not-so-portable pet that requires heat, plan what you’ll do in case of an outage. There’s some fish advice here.

ADDED 11:57 AM: Thanks to Jack for generator advice:

Never back-feed a generator into your house electrical system — this means never build a male-to-male AC cable and feed the generator directly into an AC outlet –this can kill or injure line workers trying to restore power — too late now but have a transfer switch installed so that when you need a generator you can switch your house electrical system off the grid.

Never operate a generator in a building due to fire and CO hazard

Never fuel a running or hot generator — you spill the gas and you have an immediate fire

Got any tips to share, just in case? (Power outage OR “more snow,” since the latter seems to be a sure bet, even if the former is an unknown quantity at this point.)

westseattledood December 20, 2008 (7:03 am)

Thanks WSB, as usual, for all this terrific information!

I certainly hope the coming storm is not as severas ’06, but folks would be wise to look at that info and write it down somewhere – just in case.

My little suggestion is about staying warm: Keep a warm hat on your head! Doing so will help retain lots of potential body heat.

Good luck everyone
& Happy Holidays!

austin December 20, 2008 (7:16 am)

+1 warm hat suggestion. I was able to comfortably spend four consecutive hours outside yesterday thanks in part to a warm hat and long johns. Thanks to WSB and the WS community for the outstanding coverage and information during this unusual time!

valvashon December 20, 2008 (7:48 am)

Unless you have a laptop with a good battery or a UPS backup for your desktop system, I recommend shutting off your computer if you start to notice the winds picking up this afternoon. No matter what your operating platform, a sudden unplanned shutdown can damage the hard drive and cause a loss of data

Val

mayjune December 20, 2008 (8:06 am)

How about taking advantage of the cold temperatures outside for food storage if the power goes out? I think ours would even be cold enough in our garage!

AD December 20, 2008 (8:12 am)

valvashon – I second your advice. I lost EVERYTHING in the 2006 windstorm (and nothing was backed up).

karen December 20, 2008 (8:43 am)

Generally it is not recommended to keep food outside because even when it’s cold, the temp can fluctuate enough to cause problems. However, you can put things that either don’t go bad or can tell if it’s off (like milk) out. That may allow you to keep the fridge door closed.
A trick I learned for the freezer – freeze a cup about half full of water, mark where the ice is on the side and then turn the cup upside down and put it in the freezer. This will allow you to know if the freezer has warmed up and how much.

littlebrowndog December 20, 2008 (8:44 am)

I’m filling a couple of thermoses with hot coffee and a couple more with hot soup. I have discovered that if I heat coffee to really hot in the microwave after brewing then it will stay hot in a thermos for over 24 hours. Same with soup.

beth December 20, 2008 (9:02 am)

I haven’t heard any talk about preventing frozen pipes – we have electric heat in my condo building and no fireplaces. Any suggestions?

Julie December 20, 2008 (9:16 am)

I have two elderly cats, one of whom is fragile. They are both strictly indoor cats, so have not developed a tolerance for cold temperatures. In 2006, they cried from the cold! We needed a way to keep them warm when we couldn’t provide body warmth. Going to a hotel, or staying with friends, is less doable when you have animals who need care.

I have a gas water heater, which, unlike the gas furnace, keeps working in a power outage. I turned the water heater to a higher temperature than usual, and filled several very large lidded buckets (10 gallon?) with the hot water, arranged those in a cluster with a foot or so between them in the living room, and covered the whole with several blankets, creating a warm chamber.

The large mass of the water in the buckets, plus the insulating blanket, helped the water stay warm all day; those cats dived under the blanket and stayed in their “cat hotel” pretty much for the duration. They would come out to eat and use the litter box, and head straight back to the warmth. I re-filled the buckets twice a day.

One day when I was especially cold, I crawled in beside them! It was toasty!

I most sincerely hope I never have to use this trick again, but I have the buckets ready, just in case.

I discovered that a large bucket of hot water didn’t manage to raise the temperature of a whole room effectively; to use the water as a source of heat, you need to reduce the size of the space it’s heating.

sharonn December 20, 2008 (9:25 am)

Make sure the vent flapper to your dryer is not frozen shut on the outside. Potential fire hazzard.

Peaches December 20, 2008 (9:27 am)

Any word on road conditions? I need to get from Roxbury to Jefferson Square. 28th Ave SW is packed snow but no one sliding as far as I’ve seen.

SD December 20, 2008 (9:35 am)

Yes, I’m also wondering how the roads are–same as yesterday? Better? Worse because of the low temps overnight?

PP December 20, 2008 (9:37 am)

What are the roads like from Roxbury Safeway to Burien and or Southcenter?? Any advice??

sks December 20, 2008 (9:53 am)

Like others, I am wondering what roads are like from Arbor Heights to the junction? How’s 35th?

Thanks all and thanks very much WSB. Outstanding resource.

eileen December 20, 2008 (9:54 am)

Check in with any neighbors who might need help preparing today before the storm hits – see if they need something at the store and keep checking in with them to make sure they are okay.

datamuse December 20, 2008 (10:11 am)

I drove home from the eastside last night around 9pm, West Seattle Bridge to Delridge and Holden, no problems. Still packed snow and ice in spots on the roads, but it never really heated up enough yesterday to do that melt-and-refreeze thing that makes driving in winter weather such an adventure.
.
Hubby went out this morning and said the Westwood shopping center was an ice rink, but manageable. Roads to and from were fine.
.
I think that, like yesterday, take it slow and be careful and you’ll be fine.

JT December 20, 2008 (10:12 am)

35th and across the bridge to I 90 was a breeze at 7 am.

p December 20, 2008 (10:19 am)

peaches, I just went up to the junction, and to the laundry, and all is fine. 28th is slippery, but passable. You shouldn’t have any problems getting around. Even the “closed” Morgan Street is full of traffic…isn’t it illegal to drive on a closed street? Just drive with care. Its the side streets that are crappy.

KatherineL December 20, 2008 (10:21 am)

I’m doing a couple loads of laundry this morning. If I lose power for days, I’m going to at least start with clean clothes.

GenHillOne December 20, 2008 (10:25 am)

Some hints on reptiles (we work our way through these steps the longer the power is out) – first we wrap tank in towels/blankets to retain heat that’s there (be sure you turn heat lamps off so if power comes on, you don’t have a fire hazard with the cloth); if a large area, lessen the area to warm by putting a piece of cardboard inside down the middle; fill an old juice container, glass jar, or water bottle with hot water and place inside (wrap in cloth if you’re worried that it’s too hot to the touch); use hand-warmers (like for skiing) wrapped in cloth and/or buried under substrate.

If you can handle your pet, or they are small, putting them in a smaller container helps (you can even put some of the above underneath that way) and if it’s a long outage, good to take them to a friend’s house with heat. Some sites even suggest holding them under your shirt for awhile. Not so easy with our guy, so hoping that it doesn’t come to that here!

WSB December 20, 2008 (10:37 am)

Good morning, all – For road conditions etc. the rest of the day, we just started a new “updates” post by request – this one stays open for the
‘what to do in case of outage” info, which is awesome (thank you!), but if you have road info (pix welcome too) since people will be out and about for hours to come, the pre-storm updates go to:
https://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=12877

thanks! – TR

Tom December 20, 2008 (10:38 am)

We have a Scion with just 2-wheel drive & no chains. We just went from 100th St. in Arbor Heights to the Junction via 35th with no trouble. Roads are packed snow with lots of bare asphalt. Only trouble spot was Alaska headed toward the Junction and even that was easily drivable.

GenHillOne December 20, 2008 (10:42 am)

And Julie, I like your idea a lot, scoping my garage for something like that (of course a reptile habitat could slide in there) – I’d pay good money to see my two cats share a small space, but maybe if they’re desperate they’ll kiss and make up!

mellaw6565 December 20, 2008 (10:43 am)

Folks – I’ve been out on the roads all morning and the main roads everywhere are fine – some are even showing bare dry pavement underneath:)

I actually have to drive to Granite Falls this morning – uuugh!! I wonder how I find out about the smaller highways from Lake Stevens to GF?

WSB December 20, 2008 (10:48 am)

FYI I can’t move comments from post to post so if anyone has a minute to repost recent road conditions to the new “updates” spot – again, it’s now at:
https://westseattleblog.com/blog/?p=12877
till nightfall or new snow, whichever comes first.

Mel – there’s some regional info here:
http://mynorthwest.com/?nid=8
Also county-by-county road conditions are on county websites, to a degree – I’ll see if I can find links for that area.
Sno Co. closures: http://www.co.snohomish.wa.us/PWApp/roads/emclosure/

M December 20, 2008 (10:50 am)

Be sure to charge your cell phones now. In 2006, service was really spotty because the towers were also affected. But, if there is service, it’s hard to use the phone if it doesn’t have power. I spent hours at Tully’s that storm waiting for an power outlet to charge the phone.

Sue December 20, 2008 (11:54 am)

One thing that was very helpful to us in our 5 days of no power was one of those butane burners, like they have at omelette buffets – we got it for like $20 at Costo a few years ago. It said it was safe to use indoors (although we used it very far from the sleeping area just in case) and we used it to heat water for tea and oatmeal. It was 42 in our townhouse and to be able to have a hot bowl of oatmeal or some tea was the best feeling on earth.

Julie December 20, 2008 (12:07 pm)

GenHillOne, our tiny old lady tried to hog the whole place; she hissed at the entrance to keep the big fellow out. So I rearranged the buckets to make more than one “room”. That helped. They managed to coexist.

homesweethome December 20, 2008 (1:09 pm)

carbon monoxide – generators are one source and warming up your car in the garage another – be safe as it it gets colder and don’t warm up those cars inside – even a seemingly well ventilated garage is not truly ventilated unless open on all 4 sides

PP December 20, 2008 (1:44 pm)

Safeway on Roxbury is an absolute ZOO!
People seem to be playing nice, but the lady with a shopping cart FULL to brim did get a little bent out of shape when asked to leave the express line…. People are line up down the aisles to check out.

P December 20, 2008 (3:05 pm)

Nice on that express line…..
As a person with lots of experience with the butane burners/stove thingies. You will be fine if you use it for just a simple meal and then turn it off. If you leave it on for a long period of time you will need to open a window. And what a great idea, wish I would have thought about that 2 years ago! 2 solid days fast food sucked!