Big Blow 2006

Can't take credit for the title, some guy on the radio came up with it, but I liked it.

So where have I been all this time? Well the preceding few weeks was me just being busy and not having much to post about. You can watch my shared items for links/interesting blog posts when I haven't posted in a while. That's where I put the best stuff I've found.

Now where have I been for the last 48 hours? Figuring out how to live without electricity. Thursday night we had a big windstorm sweep through about 10pm. It started with torrential rain around 4:30pm that flooded my neighborhood. I ran the 80 yards from work to my apartment and got absolutely soaked. I hopped in my car and headed over the hill to Redmond for someones going away party and a couple traffic lights were out and causing huge backups in traffic. Took me about 45 mins to go 3 miles. After dinner everything had cleared up and I headed home.

The winds started to pick up around 10 and the lights were flickering pretty regularly. I started hearing thumps out in the parking lot and took a look and whole shingles were coming off of the room and landing on the cars in the parking lot below. Luckily that was the extent of the damage to my apartment building. The sane numbers say there were gusts to 69mph with some insane numbers like 100 way up in the mountains. They closed the 520 bridge about 11pm and it didn't open again till noon the next day. It sustained some minor damage, but pretty much what they expected.

The first brief power outage was about 11:30, but then around midnight the power went down for good. Being the ill prepared single male I am I searched around for a light source. I finally found the LED glasses I bought for working on my 944. Only one side was working, but it was better than being in the dark. I found some magazines I was behind on and read those till I fell asleep assuming the lights would be back on by morning.

Friday morning opened with no power so I took a "warm" shower and went over to the office. The shower was only warm because I had to leave the bathroom door open so I could have some light while I showered. When I got to the office there was a note on the door saying the office was closed due to flooding and no power. I guess the lowest level of the building (our parking garage) had about a foot of water in it.

Since I figured there was an email waiting for me telling me if I was supposed to be working waiting for me I went in search of some place with power and internet. I made a circuit of my known Starbucks and they are were all dark. The only place with any power was downtown Bellevue and that was only enough for the traffic lights and few businesses right on 8th. I concluded my loop back in Kirkland and found the QFC working in a diminished capacity. They had enough power for minimal lights and to run the registers. I grabbed some water, canned soup, bread, and some treats. Figured it would be enough for a day or so till the power came back on.

I never did find any internet and my cell wasn't working. I decided I'd try my pager to see if it at least still worked. I managed to get an email to Jen to let her know my situation. Guess carrying this thing around finally paid off.

So after a few more magazines it started occurring to me that it was going to get dark real soon and I should probably find some way to get more light than my little glasses could throw out. So I went back to the QFC and picked up some batteries for the little radio I had found (its that little pink one I've had forever) and some candles. They only had scented candles, but at least they were big and on sale. Little bit of wisdom about using candles for light while I'm on the subject. Go the lightest color ones they have, white is best. The darker ones absorb a lot of their own light.

The expected overnight lows were in the low 40s and I have electric heat. So I put on a jacket and put down the blinds to hold in what little heat I had. I lit up the candles and put the radio on the news channel hoping to hear that my power would be on soon. Luckily I was pretty severely behind on my car mags so I had plenty of reading to do by candlelight.

Around 11pm I noticed a light bloom coming from what looked like the Totem Lake area. Being bored out of my mind I figured I'd go check it out. I stumbled down to the parking garage in the dark only to find that the gate had been closed. After a bit of fumbling around I figured out how to raise it manually. This is not an activity I'd want to do very often. You have to hold the release chain in one hand while pulling a loop of chain with the other that does the actual lifting. The surprising part was on the way down the thing just about free fell and the chain managed to beat up my hands pretty bad. Bruised fingertips suck when you are trying to type.

With my car now freed of the garage I headed up to check out the light. All of the lights were on in the Taco Bell and Jack In The Box on 116th, but no one was inside. So they must have just left the lights on when they closed up the night before. I also found a gas station that was running and didn't have a line so I topped off the tank while I had the chance. There had been stories all day on the radio about gas lines at the few stations that had power so this was definitely some good luck.

One surprising thing was how quickly I tired of eating cold food. I really wanted a hot meal and went searching for one. Downtown Bellevue was completely lit up by this point and I found the Jack In The Box there was up and running. I was also finally able to get a cell signal and check my email from my phone.

A public service reminder: if the traffic light is out at an intersection you are supposed to treat it like a four way stop. This includes stopping no matter what. I saw quite a few cops out reminding people of this fact last night. However I would like to say in general I've been very impressed with the people and drivers of the Puget Sound area. 99.9% of people have been very calm in waiting at the backed up intersections and in line for food or gas. Something like this can quickly get ugly and it hasn't.

Another side note: star gazers must love power outages. The stars out last night were phenomenal. Doubt I'll see another sky like that around here till the next massive power outage.

So with both my car's and my belly full I headed back to my apartment to get some sleep. I parked the car over at the office since I didn't feel like doing another cycle of opening and closing the gate. I grabbed an extra blanket and crawled into bed with my radio and Sturgis. BTW its about 55 degrees in my apartment at this point.

That concludes the first 24 hours of the outage. Stay tuned for day two.