West Seattle, Washington
25 Thursday
LOTS going on around the peninsula. From the WSB West Seattle Events calendar:
BRIDGE ADVISORIES FOR TONIGHT: The Fauntleroy Expressway is scheduled to be closed overnight as the Seismic Retrofit Project continues, and lane closures are scheduled because of the Spokane Street Viaduct Widening Project. Details here.
MID-WINTER BREAK CONTINUES: School’s out all week for Seattle Public Schools and other schools that follow its calendar.
ROTARY CLUB OF WEST SEATTLE: If you’re going to the Rotary Club of West Seattle weekly luncheon meeting today, we’ll see you there, since your editor here is guest speaker today. Noon at Salty’s on Alki.
‘THE SHARING REVOLUTION’: Tonight, it’s a “Share Fair” and panel discussion at Sustainable West Seattle‘s meeting, 6-9 pm, Senior Center of West Seattle (California/Oregon) (details here)
SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THE DESC PROJECT IN DELRIDGE? New advisory committee convenes a public hearing on the DESC Delridge 66-unit homeless-housing project, and would like to hear from everyone in the community with something to say about the project, to help define community concerns/interests going forward. 6:30 pm, Youngstown Cultural Arts Center (4408 Delridge Way SW).
NEW P-PATCH IN WEST SEATTLE: Parks and Green Spaces Levy money has been awarded to create a P-Patch community garden at Westcrest Park in Highland Park, and tonight’s the orientation and design criteria meeting. Organizers say, “You don’t need any experience gardening or community organizing, just an interest in being involved.” 6:30 pm, Highland Park Improvement Club, 12th and Holden.
TOASTMASTERS’ SPEECH CONTEST: 6:30-8 pm tonight at The Kenney: 7125 Fauntleroy Way SW, West Seattle Toastmasters 832 will hold their International Speech Contest; guests are invited to watch the competition free of charge. Club contest winners move on to area competition next month in Renton.
WEST SEATTLE CRIME PREVENTION COUNCIL: At tonight’s WSCPC meeting, new precinct liaison Melissa Chin from the City Attorney’s Office will be introduced, and Jill Otake from the U.S. Attorney’s Office Violent Crime Task Force will speak. 7 pm, Southwest Precinct (Delridge/Webster) – full details here
West Seattle diver Laura James shares the photo at left – flowers at Cove 2, off Seacrest, left in memory of the diver who died on Sunday. As noted here Sunday night, Laura was one of the divers who went down to mark the spot where another “civilian” team had discovered him, so that police and fire divers could subsequently, and quickly, finish the recovery. Tonight, more information:
*In comments on Sunday night’s report, the diver who died is identified by his girlfriend and others as Tareq. We have learned his last name as well, but are not publishing it yet, while awaiting King County Medical Examiner confirmation that next-of-kin has all been notified (their usual daily media report was not available today because of the holiday). One commenter mentions that he was a ham-radio operator; we are told he was active with an emergency-preparedness group.
*Also commenting was Johanna Raupe, one of the divers who found the body at 110 feet down; she was taken to the Virginia Mason Center for Hyperbaric Medicine after a problem during her ascent. Via e-mail, she shared with WSB the account of what she told her dive group had happened, writing of a “major equipment failure” at 95 feet. As for how she’s doing, she wrote, “I am doing fine, I only experienced pain-related symptoms with some poor balance. The doctor told me I executed the best practices perfectly and my being here was testament to that fact. I had to do a preventative Table-6 decompression. I was released (Monday) morning a little after 4 AM. I am under observation and evaluation for a week.”
*If you missed our original coverage – Tareq was reported to be with an advanced dive class when something went wrong before 11 am Sunday; another diver tried surfacing with him, but lost track of him. Authorities were called, and Seattle Police/Fire and the U.S. Coast Guard searched in the water, from the air, and even from land (atop an SFD ladder) until late in the afternoon. After the dives involving Johanna and Laura, as detailed above, recovery operations were concluded successfully just before 8 pm.
4:34 PM UPDATE: The KCME now officially identifies the diver who died as 29-year-old Tareq Saade. Cause of death is listed as accidental drowning. According to information we have found online, Mr. Saade was a Microsoft employee who lived on Capitol Hill.
ADDED 11:28 PM: In further correspondence with Johanna – who identifies her diving buddy as Patricia Gunderson, and also has words of thanks for Yvonne Renick, shore support – we asked her how she and Patricia came to be the ones who went down looking after the official search was suspended, something we had not yet heard:
My dive buddy and I originally planned to dive at Redondo. When we got there, there were hundreds of divers in the water. Not a good environment for photography. So we went to Salt Water state park. We couldn’t get in the water there because of the logs baring the beach. We then decided to go to Alki and arrived around noon.
When we go there, Pat looked at me and said “Something is going to happen to us today because all of the cards are lining up. We’re supposed to be here for some reason.”
We stayed at Alki all day watching the entire event unroll. When the team started calling off the recovery for the day (~4:15 PM) I decided to go and talk to two different officers onsite. I let both of them know that I would be locating the body and what did they want me to do with it when I found it.
My buddy and I immediately started checking out our gear and setting it up. (I had to get clearance from the police to enter the water) We got in the water about 5:00 PM and found Tareq about 5:05 based on the clues I mentioned in a prior recount. We moved the body to the new location and headed in.
Why did I do this? I’m a diver and a mother. I have both a son and a daughter that are divers as well. I know what goes on under the water when the sun goes down over the sound. I know how many divers have been lost and never recovered or found maybe years later. The conditions were prime to find him before the marine life came in and before the big exchange happened. I wouldn’t want my children left behind. I could not leave him behind, not if I had the skills to locate him.
I have a gift. I’ve been really successful on my searching, rescues and then this one recovery. I’ve brought three people up successfully. I knew without a doubt that I could find this guy.
(Taken on 35th looking toward Fauntleroy just before 8 am February 8th)
Hundreds if not thousands of drivers who use the Fauntleroy Way entrance to the West Seattle Bridge may still have memories of February 8th, the morning the 35th/Fauntleroy stoplight turned into a 4-way stop for much of the morning commute. We first reported on it as a traffic alert, and then followed up later in the day, because we and others had noticed the light in flash mode the night before, and wondered why it hadn’t been fixed before it could cause a rush-hour backup.
Hours later, SDOT spokesperson Rick Sheridan told WSB , “Though reported overnight, the signal required specialized diagnosis and repair expertise.” (The rest of his statement’s in our followup story.) In an article published online tonight, Seattle Times (WSB partner) reporter Susan Kelleher digs further into what happened. She writes that at the time of the incident, SDOT had a rule that in essence resulted in no one being available for overtime callout to West Seattle the night of February 7th, and reports that rule was dropped last week after a union grievance. The Times report attributes the rule to an SDOT manager who gained notoriety because he, as Kelleher writes, “led the city’s botched response to the December 2008 snowstorms and who figured prominently in a yearlong human-resources investigation into the department’s street-maintenance division.” You can read her story here.
Besides regular monthly lunch meetings and big annual events like the Westside Awards (April 18th this year), the West Seattle Chamber of Commerce offers its members other opportunities to get together – like a brand-new type of event on the calendar for next week: The first Young Professionals Network mixer. David Kim from AmericanWest Bank in The Junction is organizing it, as chair of the Chamber’s Ambassador Committee. Don’t get stuck on the “y” word, he advises, because “the YPN is designed as a unique, casual network programming for those that are young-at-heart. Some other YPNs have an age limit, but … we determined that we wanted to engage members that wanted to have something fun & exciting to mix it up.” The first YPN event is a scotch tasting at West 5 at 5 pm Tuesday, February 28th – “a tasting of several brands of single-malt scotches, with a brand expert on hand to educate about scotch,” West 5 proprietor and Chamber board chair Dave Montoure explains. No fee, and open to all Chamber members; if you haven’t received an e-mail invitation, you can RSVP through the Chamber website. (Not a member? Here’s how to join.)
While at SDOT headquarters downtown two weeks ago to discuss the Spokane Street Viaduct Widening Project, now in its final months (our story’s here), they mentioned that they would soon be able to share renderings for the art to be included in the work, part of the SDOT Art Plan, which in turn is part of the city’s “1% for art” rule. And here’s a peek:
Project manager Stuart Goldsmith explains:
But if a family expecting a child wanted to explore the option of home birth with a certified midwife – there was no dedicated, midwifery-only West Seattle practice to turn to. Till now.
As always, the WSBeat summaries are from reports on cases handled recently by 
Turns out there are two public hearings this week related to the 
Disclaimer: The contents of this evening included profanity, alcohol, and ear-ringing chords. 
While we await a reply to our request for comment, details are already in 
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