West Seattle, Washington
10 Saturday
Thanks to Sarah for sending the photo and tip:
That’s Amanda Cox, who just opened Rarities at 9422 Delridge Way SW (“a few doors down from Fresh Flours” is how Sarah described the location). The grand-opening announcement explains that the shop is a “showroom full of fine furniture: Antique, mid-century modern, and contemporary. Also featuring jewelry, fine art, unique art objects, and oddities.” The grand-opening celebration continues tomorrow (Sunday, December 12th), noon-6 pm; regular hours will be Wednesdays through Sundays, noon-6 pm. No website yet but if you have questions, call 206-694-9597.
Tonight’s photo is from Sung, one of the people who emailed to tell us that another well-known West Seattle family display has returned this year: “The Madonna is back for 2021! Ron Gai just finished the display at the old Gai family home after nearly a month of very hard work.” Two years ago, also after reader tips, we reported that this display returned after a 20+-year hiatus, 14 years after the death of family patriarch Phil Gai (Ron’s father), co-founder of the baking company and creator of the Christmas display – centered on the Madonna – that drew visitors from near and far every holiday season for more than two decades. You can see it in the 3200 block of 36th SW [vicinity map].
Got – or seen – a special display? Email us, with or without photo(s) – westseattleblog@gmail.com; see past spotlights here, and listed in our Holiday Guide!
The Menashe Family Lights display is a popular backdrop for holiday photos just about every night of the season, but tonight is the one night with an extra reason to visit – Santa‘s annual stop. Until 10 pm, you can take a pic with Santa outside the bright lights at 5605 Beach Drive SW. If you can, bring a non-perishable food donation to help the West Seattle Food Bank feed thousands of neighbors in need. There’s one more special connection to Santa:
All season long, that mailbox amid the lights collects letters to Santa. (P.S. If you miss him at the Menashes’ tonight, other Santa photo ops are listed in our Holiday Guide.)
Two weeks until Christmas, and just one week left to get a tree from West Seattle’s only nonprofit lot – here’s an update from the Holy Rosary Tree Lot north of The Junction:
If you haven’t gotten your tree yet, Holy Rosary School’s tree lot received a fresh load last night. Trees, wreaths, garland and Seattle Lutheran poinsettias are available. Our tree-lot elves will also assist in getting your tree ready for transport.
The tree lot benefits not only Holy Rosary School, but also West Seattle Food Bank/Clothesline, Salvation Army Hickman House, and Seattle Lutheran High School (poinsettias only).
Bring 5 cans of food and get $5 off your purchase!
Open 9 am-9 pm today and Sunday, located behind Holy Rosary School (corner of 41st & Dakota).
Tree/wreath sellers are part of what you’ll find in our West Seattle Holiday Guide.
2:30 PM: Seattle Fire is dispatching a “major water-rescue response” to 61st/Alki after the Coast Guard reported to them that “three or more paddleboarders are in distress.” This as the weather suddenly gets ugly again. Updates to come.
2:36 PM: They’re trying to get a better read on the location – the person(s) in trouble may be close to the state ferry Tacoma in Elliott Bay.
2:39 PM: An SFD boat has reached the three paddleboarders, and a boat from the ferry, and says they’re NOT in distress, so the response is being canceled.
11:19 AM: Lincoln Park is just one of the places where the overnight windstorm took out trees. (Thanks to Mindi Katzman for the top photo!) That’s also the major cause of the outages that cut power to almost 5,000 people in West Seattle overnight (here’s our as-it-happened coverage). About 450 customers are still out, mostly in Gatewood/Upper Fauntleroy (WSB HQ included) – here’s a screengrab from the Seattle City Light map:
This also is the biggest outage still remaining in SCL’s entire service area. There are several other small pocket outages, including one affecting the West Seattle Health Club – trees came down along Longfellow Creek by the club (thanks to Mark Tiedemann for the photos):
The weather alert expired at 10 am as scheduled but it’ll still be breezy for the rest of the day. Storm-aftermath updates to come.
12:30 PM: Thanks for the tips! City Light has just returned to the 45th SW dead end south of Austin (which also was the problem location last time we lost power a few years back). Lines here go through a greenbelt.
They’ve gone into the greenbelt and chainsaw(s) can be heard.
2:15 PM: Heather reports via Twitter that the Admiral pocket is back. And the SCL map suggests part of “our” outage is restored – we are away from HQ so can’t confirm yet.
2:27 PM: Just arrived, and yes, after 11 hours, we’re back. Tallying the remaining outages now.
4:07 PM: Three spots in West Seattle still show as being out – the 49-customer pocket in Gatewood/south Morgan, 3 customers on Beach Drive near Cormorant Cove Park, and the Longfellow Creek tree trouble that took out West Seattle Health Club power.
The chilly, breezy weather isn’t stopping brothers Atticus and Dominic from their annual drop-off donation drive – until 3 pm, you can drive, ride, or walk into the lot behind Hope Lutheran and donate food and/or money for the West Seattle Food Bank, and/or “new or gently used coats of all sizes which will be placed by Westside Interfaith Network at their welcome table every Saturday in White Center.” The brothers – Atticus is a freshman at Raisbeck Aviation High School and Dominic is a 7th grader at Hope – say, “Thank you once again for helping us support the members of our community during these times.” You can enter the lot off SW Oregon just east of 42nd SW.
The weather should be calming, in time for a busy holiday Saturday. Here’s what’s scheduled to happen, mostly from our West Seattle Holiday Guide and year-round Event Calendar (and if anything changes because of the storm, we’ll update this list):
5:51 PM: A Seattle Fire “full response” is in the 2600 block of SW Yancy [map], fighting what’s described as a working house fire. The resident(s) are reported to have gotten out safely.
5:58 PM: SFD reports the fire is out and was contained to the house’s basement.
12:12 AM: As the wind kicks up, we’ve got the first power-outage report. So far, we have texters from (updated) High Point, Westwood, South Delridge, Highland Park, and Sunrise Heights reporting an outage. Not mapped yet. Updates to come.
12:16 AM: It’s not mapped yet but as dispatchers send fire crews to alarms triggered by the outage, they’ve just announced 4,000 customers are out.
12:39 AM: City Light map’s still not showing this outage, but readers are reporting affected areas in the comments – thanks.
12:44 AM: Single-car crash reported in the 7700 block of Delridge Way SW, which is reported to be in the outage area.
12:48 AM: City Light map is finally showing this outage. 4,442 homes/businesses. We’ll add a screenshot of the map momentarily.
12:54 AM: Part of South Park is out too, the map shows.
1:16 AM: Outage down to 2,700+ customers – the rest just got their power back after about an hour. Here’s the updated map showing who’s still out:
2:07 AM: Map shows outage has downsized a bit again, to 2,523, but a texter says they “just saw another flash a few moments ago and the lights that were on in Highland Park in 8th Avenue went out.’ They also report an SCL crew checking out a nearby pole. Also, a pocket of 19 homes in west Admiral is out as of about 15 minutes ago:
2:19 AM: Another pocket: 75 in North Delridge as of about 10 minutes ago:
2:47 AM: And now we’re out in Upper Fauntleroy. … and back after a few minutes … and out again.
2:54 AM: The wind continues roaring. And now SFD’s being dispatched to what’s described as a transformer fire, in the 7800 block of 45th SW.
3:04 AM: After 15 minutes, “our” outage still hasn’t shown up on the map. Meantime, a texter down the hill in lower Gatewood just heard an explosion-type sound. (Update) City Light’s automated recording, which will provide information to people directly affected by outages, says ours is affecting 148 homes.
3:24 AM: Map’s updated. Three outages totaling 450 customers in Upper Fauntleroy and Gatewood.
Add that to the outages elsewhere, and it’s 3,060+ homes/businesses out right now around West Seattle. We’ve also just heard from Amy in Arbor Heights, who reports a tree through her house:
No injuries.
4:11 AM: We seem to have made it through a full hour with no new outages. Still very windy, and the National Weather Service has reaffirmed that its alert continues until 10 am. The NWS says barometric pressure is bottoming out right now “as a cold front sweeps through the area.” … The original outage is now down to 1,453 customers, per the SCL map. (added) City Light says this outage was caused by a “failed splice.”
5:54 PM: The Delridge pocket has power back; the original High Point (etc.) outage is now down to 712. The wind’s still raging. … So a total of almost 1,200 West Seattle customers (including us) are still out.
7:47 AM: Unchanged since last update.
10:15 AM: The original outage zone is now fully restored. That leaves the ~450 in Gatewood/Upper Fauntleroy (us included) as the largest remaining West Seattle outage. Meantime, daylight reveals more downed trees – we’ll start a separate storm-damage/outage report soon – any updates/damage reports, please let us know via westseattleblog@gmail.com or (text) 206-293-6302 – thank you!
11:24 AM: We’re continuing coverage at this link.
| 4 COMMENTS