West Seattle, Washington
11 Wednesday
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.
Can you believe it’s been exactly two weeks since we all woke up to the aftermath of 2+ inches of rain and 60+ mph wind? For many of us, the nightmare ended when the power came back. But for others, the damage lingers — these WS folks say it’s not all Ma Nature’s fault.
Caveat first, we are not condoning New Year’s Eve drunkenness and we trust that if you leave the house, you will pick a DD or take a taxi. (What happened to Avi, memorialized in a poster we saw in a WS shop window last night, could happen to you.) That said, there’s no denying that many of us will drink something alcoholish Sunday night. So this might be helpful info, if you, like us, need to buy something to serve @ home: West Seattle’s state liquor stores are closed Sunday, but they’ve got helpful signs posted noting that the one in The Junction will be open later than usual on Saturday (10 pm). And if you’re just looking for fine wine/champagne, you CAN shop Sunday @ West Seattle Cellars, according to their site.
Happened onto this delectable description of a meal at Taqueria Guaymas in The Junction. Only omission, the jalapeno carrot slices at the otherwise-well-described salsa bar. Spectacular. (WS trivia, did you know that TG actually started in WS?)
Now that we are finally able to get online (albeit in the dead o’ night), a few more things:
-Time’s running out for a cool way to make your mark on one of the biggest projects in WS right now: pledge $ by New Year’s Eve for a tile at the new West Seattle Food Bank.
-One week left to tell the National Weather Service what to name The Storm.
-If you missed it in comments below, The Cow/Bull/Steer is back (does it have an official name?) atop John’s Corner Deli, after its Dorothy-esque windblown journey during the As Yet Unnamed Storm. Here’s proof:
If you get internet service from the same place we get internet service, you might also be experiencing this new nightly ritual … sit down at the computer, type a website address, and … wait to see if a Certain Cable Company Starting With C will allow us to access the tubes. The spotty service finally got bad enough last night for us to call and complain. Yes, we were told, there is a major outage (THAT WORD AGAIN) in areas including West Seattle, and it’s due to damage from The Storm. (This article talks about one ongoing since the storm, but ours has been intermittent. Just like, interestingly, these folks back east.) Our next two questions: (a) will this bring a discount on our bill, and (b) is there some more reliable way to get fast internet service (Clearwire? Sprint? aluminum foil around our ears?). Anybody who’s switched from The Cable Company Starting with C and is happier with their new provider, please do tell.
In case you didn’t hear this one yesterday … we found it on the city press-release page. Seems showing up at a park in ’07 with an unlicensed dog could earn you a fat fine.
Kudos to Seattle City Light for a raw, but thorough, update on cause of last night’s outage, presented here in its entirety in case it’s gone when you check the link:
Power to the Highland Park, Delridge, White Center, South Park neighborhoods have been restored. Cause was unstable hillside sluffing off & trees falling into 26kv @ Highland Park Wy SW between W. Marginal Wy SW & SW Webster St. A crew is onsite to repair but ETR is unknown due to still unstable hillside. 1 customer remains out until perm repair is done.
… for a very pleasant story in the new edition about blogs. Reporter Rebekah Schilperoort graciously allowed us to answer questions via e-mail, and we are thrilled to see she spotlighted West Seattle’s funniest blogger, the irrepressible Mona, one of many WS-based bloggers linked from this page. However, for anyone who cares, we did not actually disclose our gender to Rebekah; guess she chose to use the time-honored style of defaulting to “he” when gender info’s not available. (And note we are ASSUMING Rebekah’s a she.)
Just back from one last drive to confirm that everyone (at least, ALMOST everyone) seems to be powered up again — though as of just before 9, Highland Park Way was still blocked off, not far from where we snapped this poignant sign during the Big Outage. However, more trouble may yet be afoot if it doesn’t stop raining … still pouring out there, huge puddles everywhere, and of course the ground didn’t have much time to recover from the Christmas Eve deluge.
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.
At WSB HQ, the holiday season isn’t considered over till the Super Bowl party. So there’s more than a month of fun left. In the short run, New Year’s Eve is just days away. We’ve got some of the local festivities listed on our Holiday Stuff page (which otherwise was emptying out now that all the pre-Christmas excitement is gone) — including a few that sound 100% family-friendly. And of course, non-official festivities will be numerous, especially the gatherings at Alki, Seacrest, Don Armeni, and other prime spots to watch the Space Needle fireworks. The forecast so far is a little vague, so here’s hoping for a beautiful night.
Just out for a Christmas night drive … saw a few places with people inside; on Alki, Celtic Swell and Pepperdock — in The Junction, we’d already heard about Poggie’s plans from Slog — and besides the convenience stores you’d expect to see open (including indies like Juneau St. Market), both Rite Aid branches are open.
The proof: QuickTime version or Windows Media Viewer version. (So that’s who brought us the brightly wrapped box of those elusive D batteries!)
In our extreme youth we scoffed at “practical” presents. But in light of what we’ve all just gone through … there was no sweeter sight under the tree than this. Now, it’s time to go find that Christmas morning latte. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
You hear claims that Seattle is more “unchurched” than other major U.S. cities. Yet somehow, at least for the major religious celebrations, we Seattleites manage to fill the pews, if we so choose. Example in point, Holy Rosary 4 pm Christmas Eve service tonight, overflow SRO crowd by quarter till. Speaking of HR, its former pastor Father Jeffrey Sarkies continues to blog at least weekly, beautiful musings (as we’ve mentioned before) on faith and humanity, among other things, and we found his Christmas Eve message particularly touching. (Checking links for this post, we learned Fr. Sarkies moved to Arizona last month, after a surprise going-away party here in WS. Godspeed.)
We started WSB exactly 1 year ago, Christmas Eve morning 2005, so we’re taking this occasion to thank you for stopping by, and also to offer special thanks to the folks who take the time to send us e-mail or leave comments with observations, opinions, tips, whatever. We’ll save the “year in review” for next week; for now, a very merry Christmas Eve to you!
-First, the non-merry note: After just 6 months, looks like Al’s Cafe & Espresso on Cali Ave north of Morgan Junction is out. We thought it seemed odd this morning to see it closed this morning when we stopped by during prime coffee time to check on its Christmas hours; drove past this evening, suddenly the sign’s gone from its window, and a light inside shows the place pretty much stripped bare. Tough location, with so much so close right at the Fauntleroy/Cali crossroads.
-Now, the holiday cheer: One more light display to recommend — 56th & Alki, Santa in the front yard on a brightly lit replica of construction equipment (with a sign for a construction company cleverly placed beneath it). And at 42nd & Raymond, we passed a parked pickup truck with HONK IF YOU LOVE SANTA written big and bold in the rear window.
-Just ’cause the power’s back doesn’t mean City Light crews’ work is done … saw a truck in action after 8 pm tonight, back at the scene of The Tree That Blocked Fauntleroy.
So many Christmas mornings in the past, we sneaked away to seek the ol’ triple-tall, and wound up on a long, desperate, almost comical search. So this year, in our own self-interest as well as that of any other Christmas caffeine-seeker who stops by this page, we have visited or called just about espresso establishment in West Seattle to check Christmas Day plans, and here’s who will be open on Monday (bless your hearts and here’s hoping the tip jars overflow): On Christmas Day, Diva will be open 8 am-1 pm; Caffe Ladro will be open 7 am-noon; both Tully’s WS locations, 8 am-2 pm; M-Junction Starbucks, 7 am-4 pm.
City Light says everybody’s now powered up again. But the storm did a lot more than take away the electricity, so if you’ve got home or property damage, be sure to report it if you haven’t already; here’s how.
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