West Seattle, Washington
14 Wednesday
Just five days until the Sub Pop Records 30th anniversary party at Alki Beach – noon-10 pm next Saturday (August 11th), with 18 bands on four stages (see the schedule here). Tonight, volunteers gathered at the beach for a briefing and T-shirt distribution – here’s what you’ll see them wearing on Saturday:
With the band list and schedule out, the final details yet to come primarily involve the final transportation plan, including road closures, and we’re expecting that tomorrow. It’s been five months since Sub Pop started bringing updates to neighborhood meetings, seven months since SPF30 was announced.
8:39 PM: Thanks to David Hutchinson for the view from Alki. He and others pointed out smoke from the south end of the Olympics, and after some research, we’re thinking it’s the fire near Hamma Hamma on Hood Canal, now more than 70 acres, burning in what’s described as “steep terrain.”
ADDED 11:33 PM: From Long Bach Nguyen, a photo from the fire area, which is also near Lake Cushman:
The state is calling this the Maple wildfire.
ORIGINAL MONDAY REPORT: Another stolen vehicle to watch for, this one taken from the garage at The Whittaker (4755 Fauntleroy Way SW): “Dodge 1991 D350 white flatbed truck. Black rims, black grille, white exterior, tool/utility boxes underneath and on flatbed. Wooden side panels on flatbed. California plates. Cash reward. Report to police if found; call Jacob at 206-484-9232 with information.”
UPDATE: The truck has been found – apparently spotted by a reader.
(L-R, city rep Tom Van Bronkhorst, LIHI’s Josh Castle and Richard Horne, committee member Aaron Garcia and chair Willow Fulton)
By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor
No one from Camp Second Chance, West Seattle’s only city-permitted encampment, has been placed in housing in two months.
That’s what the C2C Community Advisory Committee was told when it met on Sunday for the first time since June. In the month prior to the June meeting, C2C’s case manager Richard Horne had reported, he helped seven campers find housing. On Sunday, he described the challenges that are thwarting further progress.
But first: Present from the committee were chair Willow Fulton, a nearby resident; Judi Carr, who lives at Arrowhead Gardens, where they meet; and Aaron Garcia, from the White Center Community Development Association. LIHI, which operates the camp, was represented by Horne and by Josh Castle. C2C founder and resident manager Eric Davis also was there, as was the usual city representative, Tom Van Bronkhorst of the Department of Neighborhoods.
UPDATES: Fulton started by reading a message from absent committee member Cinda Stenger, who wrote that Alki UCC – one of the camp’s major donors – has finished two more “tiny houses” for the camp, with five additional ones almost done, and is raising money for more. (City funding for the encampment does not cover tiny houses or tents, just the platforms on which they are held.)
Quick followup on the city’s planned purchase of a parcel expanding the Orchard Street Ravine “passive park” in Gatewood – the $235,000 purchase, to be funded by Park District levy money, just got unanimous final approval from the full Council. The 5600-square-foot parcel at 7137 38th SW, on a slope past a dead end (shown on this map), currently holds a dilapidated house that will be demolished, with an additional ~$125,000 to be spent on that and other costs. Full backstory is in our two previous reports – here and here.
From Tim, a stolen-vehicle report: “Gray Toyota 4Runner ’99 SUV. Washington plates 231XWQ. Also: Black brush guard on the front end. Stolen Saturday night, 98th and 17th SW. Please call 911 if you see it!”
The Mosquito Fleet mural on the east side of the city-landmark Campbell Building is next up for restoration in the finally launched project to restore all of West Seattle’s historic murals; it’ll be restored by muralist Bob Henry, who recently brought the Morgan Junction mural back to life. While the campaign to save all the Murals of West Seattle has a good start to the necessary funding – thanks to Adah Rhodes Cruzen‘s gift and to the West Seattle Garden Tour, among others – community contributions are requested, too, and that fundraising campaign has officially launched. This video tells the story:
(Video by This Is It Video Production)
More backstory on the murals and the restoration campaign – plus your options for contributing – can be found here.
(Photo courtesy Pete Spalding. P.S. For Delridge Day info, here’s our most-recent update!)
Clever sign like that one from Pigeon Point NOT required – but if you want to close a (non-arterial) street for your Night Out block party tomorrow night, you have until 5 pm today to register it. Just go here. And you can go here to find templates for street-closure signs and neighborhood invitations. If you won’t be at your own block/building party – remember that as of last count, more than 260 parties were registered in this area, so be mindful of many closed side streets between 6-9 pm tomorrow!
(Parasailing over Elliott Bay, photographed this weekend by David Hutchinson)
Moving on with our Monday:
WADING POOLS: Today’s scheduled-to-be-open West Seattle wading pools are Lincoln Park (11 am-8 pm; 8011 Fauntleroy Way SW) and Delridge (12 noon-6:30 pm; Delridge Way/Genesee).
FAMILY STORY TIME: 6:30 pm at High Point Library, which has excellent air conditioning! (3411 SW Raymond)
WEST SEATTLE QUILTERS: Join their meeting at 7 pm at the also-well-cooled Senior Center/Sisson Building! (4217 SW Oregon)
TRIVIA: 7:30 pm at The Skylark. All ages – free – with prizes! (3803 Delridge Way SW)
LOTS MORE FOR THE WEEK AHEAD, AND BEYOND … on our complete calendar!
(Screengrab from Seattle City Light website at peak of outage)
8:30 AM: Thanks for the texts. Ours is out too. We’re getting reports from a widespread area – as far north as Admiral. More to come.
8:38 AM: City Light map says more than 16,000 homes/businesses are out. Remember that intersections are four-way stops when the signals are out.
8:46 AM: City Light says via Twitter that they “believe the outage was caused by a switching problem and estimate power will be restored about 9:15 a.m.”
8:50 AM: It’s been six days since a similarly widespread outage (WSB coverage here) was blamed on a “relay malfunction,” though that one lasted only a few minutes.
8:53 AM: Our power’s back (Fauntleroy/Gatewood line). Yours? We of course will be following up with SCL. Also note that – as happened after last Tuesday’s even-shorter outage – there may be some lingering effects like flashing traffic signals.
9:26 AM: Just talked with Scott Thomsen at City Light, who is looking into questions such as whether this was human error, a mechanical problem, etc. He says the “routine maintenance” at the Delridge Substation continues so that’s one thing this did have in common with last Tuesday’s outage. We will update again later when we get more followup information.
2:23 PM: SCL’s Thomsen says via e-mail: “Crews were testing switchgear at the Delridge Substation as a part of our maintenance and reliability work. When one of the workers closed the doors for the switchgear they were testing, the vibrations tripped a relay, which then opened, cutting off power for the electrical bus (imagine a giant power strip connected to four feeder lines going out of the substation into the neighborhoods). Our engineering staff is looking at what we can do to dampen vibrations and avoid a repeat of this problem, which does occasionally affect utilities.”
(SDOT MAP with travel times/video links; is the ‘low bridge’ closed? LOOK HERE)
7:02 AM: Good morning! No incidents reported in/from West Seattle right now.
7:59 AM: Texter says there’s a crash at the top of the bridge.
12:35 AM: As we say goodbye to the weekend – contributed photos captured the pink of Sunday’s sunset, and the Blue Angels‘ flight earlier.
Thanks as always for the photos!
ADDED 10:45 AM: In case you wondered … the Blue Angels are gone until next year:
The Blue Angels just left. See you next year! #seafairissummer #usnavyblueangels #avgeeks #seattleattractions pic.twitter.com/nny1QbcBCC
— The Museum of Flight (@museumofflight) August 6, 2018
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