West Seattle, Washington
06 Saturday
Just drove through Fauntleroy/Alaska and spotted both stations suddenly down below $3 for regular — $2.99 at 76, $2.98 at Shell (that’s more than a dime since our last driveby a few hours earlier). Will check the previous low-price leader, Admiral/Cali Chev, in a bit (sightings, anyone?).
Elsewhere online, blurbs just popped up announcing a Robin Williams show at the Showbox next Tuesday, saying the proceeds will benefit the West Seattle Food Bank. Nothing about it on the WSFB site (and the mention on the Showbox site doesn’t mention the benefit aspect); but we did find a mention in the WSFB newsletter archives of a big “surprise donation” from Williams and his wife three years ago, after Showbox performances. Any insiders who can clue us to the Williams/WSFB connection, we’d love to hear the story. Meantime, you can buy tickets for this show online starting @ 10 am Monday morning (here’s the direct link).
UPDATE: The Seattle Times is reporting that supposedly the tellers at the US Bank at 4200 SW Edmunds received a note demanding cash at 12:30 this afternoon. The story also says, “the suspect is ‘hunkered down’ in the area around Southwest Brandon Street and 46th Avenue Southwest.”
King5 TV is reporting this on its web site.
West Seattle bank robbery – Seattle Police have surrounded a home in the 4600 block of SW Brandon Street in West Seattle where they believe a bank robber is holed up. More details to come.
According to Councilmember Dow Constantine’s ace staff, the official count for Elliott Bay Water Taxi passengers on kickoff day was 2,545 — which they suspect was an all-time WT record (previous known high, 1,600-plus on the day last summer when a crash closed The Bridge). As for the King County Ferry District plan that could ensure the WT’s future — DC’s team says it made progress today in the council’s “Committee of the Whole” (8:17 PM UPDATE: click ahead to read the full press release on that):
The Times just posted that West Seattle’s ex-city councilmember and citizen activist Charlie Chong is gone. Most recently, as we mentioned in February, he had lent his support to the Charlestown Cafe campaign, although we’ll always remember him best for the snowplows. 11:15 AM UPDATE: The P-I has an article up now too.
Some kind of a standoff happening — just caught a bit of a tv report – here’s an e-mail report from a witness – needless to say, sounds like an area to stay away from! (If you’ve got pix, send ’em to us.) 5:57 PM UPDATE: One comment quotes a media site as saying it’s over. Also, Slog has scene photo. 8:18 PM UPDATE: More details from the P-I.
A guy took an axe to his ex’s beamer– and is now holed up inside a house in 5200 block of 25th ave SW.Neighbors not being allowed access.. big cop presence.Axe is still hanging on the broken windshield
Not a lot of details as of this posting, but an accident at Terminal 5 (on the WS side of the container port) last night killed a longshoreman. We don’t know much about rules/tradition/protocol in these cases, but a trustworthy source tells us a fatal accident like this would lead to the docks being closed for a day.
The first, and apparently only, count of the night for the viaduct vote is in:
Tunnel – 70% no.
Replacement-a-duct – 55% no.
More ballots to be counted tomorrow (and beyond).
Reader asked what’s up with all the helicopters … looks like a frantic rescue under way at a construction site. LATE NIGHT UPDATE: The man buried in the trench didn’t make it.
If you’re seeing this in early afternoon, stay clear of Fauntleroy/California/Morgan for a while … lots of fire engines checking out something (our witness doesn’t see any smoke so we’re not sure what) at the renovation-in-progress bank, and that means traffic tieups till they’re done.
Late word from the Fauntleroy Community Association – Mayor Nickels won’t be able to appear at the community meeting in Fauntleroy a week from tomorrow, but THE MEETING IS STILL ON — with a very good (and powerful) surrogate — his righthand guy — Deputy Mayor Tim Ceis. Apparently the mayor has a sudden date to go to the nation’s capital to testify before an environmental committee in Congress.
Just when we were about to declare this a slow Friday night and back away from the computer, e-mail arrived with a note a WSB reader says he just got from the King County Elections Department, warning that Providence Mount St. Vincent will not be a polling place next Tuesday because of “sporadic cases of the norovirus over the past month.” According to the letter, three precincts whose residents usually vote at PMSV are instead being directed to vote at High Point Community Center. (Can’t reach anyone to find out more on this, but the Times did recently mention a general increase in local nursing-home noro outbreaks.)
Shocking story just hit the news about an alleged ripoff involving some Huling Brothers employees and an incapacitated older man. UPDATE: The city site has a press release about this up now.
OK, Upper Fauntleroy here got power back just after quarter till 11. We got that report from the home front while driving around to see the extent of the outage. But as of 11, some other areas are still out — you gotta ache in particular for the south end of Beach Drive, Lincoln Park Way, Lowman Beach, areas that took a week or so to get it back after The Big Outage — not to mention the Morgan Junction businesses now in their third major outage (the one on Wednesday of last week lasted all day and into the night for them, even though up here that “re-outage” lasted “only” two hours). We tried to soothe a younger member of our entourage by saying “you know, there are places in the world where life is like this all the time, power comes on, goes out, comes on, goes out,” but the younger member shut us up smartly by retorting, “yeah, but they’re USED TO IT.” Maybe we should be, too, by now.
Weird … five minutes after we listened to the City Light recording (206-684-3000 and wade thru the menu), they posted a new one that was much vaguer. Gone were the specifics about a certain area that might be out for eight hours; gone were the specifics about the “broken cross arm on a pole” being to blame … instead, the 9:07 pm update had the language of bureaucracy, “no estimated time for restoration” and “the cause is unknown.” The boundaries seemed a little off too, considering what we saw as we drove north of Morgan Junction. If you’ve got yours back, please post a comment and let us know; our correspondent back home in Upper Fauntleroy is definitely still in the dark.
To use an old quote, “this is getting old.” Yes, we too are in the outage zone. Again. Took a while to get out of the house and find someplace to go online. Looks like some areas have gotten their power back — in fact, we were driving past Chuck & Sally’s when a couple blocks right there north of M-Junction went on, and the smokers out on the corner all cheered lustily. But to the south, we’re not back yet, and the City Light outage hotline (which blames “a broken crossarm on a power pole”) says there’s a certain chunk that could be out for up to 8 hours. Stand by for more …
Early this morning, work crews arrived in the vicinity of the Upper Fauntleroy sinkhole, which now is graced by a sign about the adjacent stairway being closed for repairs.
WS Blogger Spouse kindly provides the latest eyewitness report as a side trip while shopping at Roxbury Safeway, which WSBS reports is jam-packed, perhaps with those shying away from QFC while it’s on low power. The outage stretches through the central White Center bizdist too, all the way to 107th and Ambaum. City Light is still not predicting how long this will last, nor did the latest radio-news update. As frustrating as this latest outage is, you’ve gotta feel for the SCL crews out in this latest wave of pouring rain.
Radio report says this new power outage — about 5,000 “customers” from South Park on into southeastern West Seattle — is the work of trees and lines down on Highland Park Way, which is apparently closed right now so crews can take care of it. There’s no hint of it on Delridge till just past the turnoff to Trenton as you head toward Westwood Village; then, heading west on Trenton, you can see where the power’s gone. Including apartments east of the shopping center, some homes to the south, and odd chunks of WV itself — the QFC and everything directly north of it (the whole strip of stores including the Sub Shop, Toshi’s, Starbucks, etc.), all out, along with Marshall’s, and the businesses inbetween those two buildings — Big 5, 24 Hour — but on the west side of WV, all looks well. Oh yeah, McDonald’s is out too. We’ll check back to see how long this lasts. The Seattle City Light page has a short update as well.
Off to check a possible new power outage. One tipster says it involves part of Westwood Village.
OK, sympathies to those of you (hopefully those FEW of you) who are still not back on. But as of just a few moments ago — 10:33 am to be precise, three minutes before we arrived home from our latest tour of the wi-fi “hot spots” — our power is back on. Hard to describe our neighborhood as anything but “upper Fauntleroy” — uphill from Lincoln Park. Now begins a day of trying to warm the house back up again, cleaning out the fridge (we’d already put most of the food out for trash pickup after taking photos in case we get to file an insurance claim). And dancing in the streets! More later …
We’re sure you’ve heard by now that it could get insanely windy overnight, on the heels of all this pouring rain. In case you want to write it down or print it out before the power goes out, here’s the official City Light advice. Stay safe! And let us know about any trouble in your neighborhood.
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