I know it may not seem like much to many, but the Seattle area is known for mild winters. We didn't think we were getting ANY winter this year, but last week WAS winter. We live in the cascade foothills southeast of Seattle, and on Monday, we got about 4-inches of snow. No big deal, but more than we usually get. It took three attempts to get my Dodge Caravan up the road to our neighborhood (not chaining up for 1/2 mile). That evening, we got another 6-inches and the power went out around midnight. Around 4:00am I was firing up the generator and the ice-rain began. By mid-morning there was 1.5-inch of clear ice covering everything. I was stuck at the house. My wife (in her Subaru) took our daughter to school, and then decided that the buses weren't going to be coming through the war-zone of fallen trees and power lines between us and town, so our son stayed home too. I snapped this photo of my Vus ISS beyond the fresh icicles hanging from the RV.
It was supposed to warm up and rain that afternoon, so I took a nap. Instead of drippy slush I woke up to heavy snowfall. Another 6-inches on top of the ice and compacted original. School was closed for the rest of the week, and I didn't leave for work. The main arterial to our neighborhood was barricaded, and Hwy-18 (bypass around metro Seattle) was closed it's entire length, about 30 miles. On Friday, I sent my wife out for more genny fuel, and she had to move a couple of baricades to get to town and back. Lots of trees and power lines down. On Saturday, I HAD to get to work in Seattle, but it was now warming up and melting. But the roads were still closed, and it was about a 1-hour detour to finally get up to Seattle.
The power came back on Monday, just six-hours short of an entire week. That lasted about 30-hours, until the wind-storm hit, I recorded a 45-mph gust and it went black again. Power FINALLY came back (fingers crossed) yesterday afternoon, and they finally opened the main arterial near us sometime last night.
Like I said, it may not seem like much to some folks here, but it's not the kind of weather we are used to. I'm taking Friday off to deal with the dozens of trees fallen or snapped on my property.
