Huge NW windstorm !!!

[sammyb]

Wow -- 30 hours of no power here in Oly at my house. We lost power Thursday night around midnight, and didn't get it back until yesterday at 6AM. My parents lost it around the same time and still don't have it back!!! (Bill Gates lives a mile down the road, which tells you that in the Northwest, who gets power back first isn't related to economics.)

The wind was nasty -- cat-one hurricane-level peak winds at some points. Trees were coming down all over Western WA. It was so loud it was hard to sleep, and I totally expected to wake up in the morning to see my Costco portable garage missing and my Miata lying upside-down in the back yard. (The garage was totally bent and moved -- with many of the holddowns for the vinyl broken, but the car was fine.)

Then there were the sheets of rain. My parent's house had three feet of water pooling up at the door, which sent mud and water through the main floor and down the furnace ducts.

And the weather -- it was 30 degrees outside. When our power came back on, the house was 54 degrees. My parents had 48 degrees, so the second we got power, I told them to come down -- they slept here last night.

The whole city looks like the floor after you take the Christmas tree down in late January -- needles and branches everywhere. It's amazing that only four people were killed (one drowned in a basement in the same rains that hit my parents' place, the others in car accidents with trees.)

No damage here...but I never knew how addicted I was to Internet and cable tv until they went out. (Didn't get connectivity back until noon today.)

 

[Harry_Ward]

Glad to hear you and your parents are OK! I've been watching it on the Weather Channel and CNN. Truly sorry to hear about the widespread damage.

 

[Sherlock]

Been following the storm damage, lots of it!

They were saying that Stanley Park in Vancouver is heavily damaged with downed trees... Still lots of folks without power on the Canadian side of the border...

And speaking of old cars and storms, there was one interview with a guy in Vancouver who had a tree fall directly onto his $95K hot rod

Thankfully deaths have been few and far between from what I've heard, and that is the most valuable thing of all, and the most irreplacable thing of all

 

[AngliaGT]

Sammy,

Be thankful that you didn't lose anything -
talked to a friend in Olympia last night,& he told
me about a guy he knows that had trees fall on two
of his cars - one of them was a Hillman Minx.

- Doug

 

[jayhawk]

My son lives in Seattle and he's been hit with a triple whammy. A couple days before the storm, his basement was vandalized and among other things, they got a spare key to his car. Also a couple days before the storm the computer system crashed and they lost tons of work that was near launch stage(it's an on-line computer gaming company full of computer nerds); Their house fared ok in the storm but they couldn't work to catch up on the project because they lost power at work. Also,at the beginning of the storm he had brought his car in to have the locks changed and in the garage lost power while his car was up on a lift! No car, major project to be done at work but no power, bunch of stuff stolen from his house!

 

[sammyb]

Horrible news, Jayhawk!!! As they say, when it rains, it pours. A long time ago (relatively speaking) I ran an Internet provider in Seattle...we had our billing system crash, and the guy in charge of backing up the database said "oh, I've been backing it up to a different file on the same computer!" (swearing commenced!!!) Then a hacker took down our system. The whole "everything at once" can be so overwhelming.

The good thing about having a tree fall on your cars -- insurance will cover it. (Although a Minx will be totalled, since it's awfully hard to fix tree-fall damage for under the value of a Minx.)

The bad thing about water damage in a house-- it's not covered by homeowner's insurance.

But -- everything falls behind health.

 

[ecurie_ecosse]

But -- everything falls behind health.

[/ QUOTE ]

Ain't that the truth. With health you can start again,without it?? you can start but it is harder.

Stuart. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cheers.gif

 

[vping]

Hillman Minx is a cool car. To bad for the car but lucky no one was injured.

 

[drooartz]

Good to hear you made it through (relatively) unscathed. My boss's son lives up your way, and had a tree fall onto his house, through the roof, into his bedroom. Luckily he and his wife were elsewhere in the house chasing down one of their dogs. Property damage, but no injuries.

And here I was whining about the 20" of snow I got this weekend...

 

[bugimike]

Dang, sounds like Fla. livin'. Glad you made it relatively well!

 

[SteveL]

[ QUOTE ]
Wow -- 30 hours of no power here in Oly at my house. We lost power Thursday night around midnight, and didn't get it back until yesterday at 6AM.

[/ QUOTE ]

I got power back at the apartment at 3:25am Monday morning,
just as I was getting up to go to work...

We're *still* waiting for power where I work, it went off at
11:00pm Thursday, fortunately, we have experienced this before
and had a 300KW generator installed, to supplement the 100KW
that run the internal and external networks, and 2 40KWs that
run the conveyor systems. So the business can run
at full tilt, even if the employees cant... Now they're
saying we "may" have power by Friday, but I'm not going to
hold my breath... And the 14 hour days are taking a toll on
this old man...

Steve(feeling really old)L

 

[10musketeer]

For you weather buffs, when that storm hit the altimeter dropped in Washington State to 29.14- getting down into the hurricane levels, with 60-100mph. The craziest thing I saw was at 11:30pm the center of the state was at 31 degrees while 200 mi east in Walla Walla it was 63! That's an amazing spread for this area!

In the center of the state we lost tons of shingles and trees, but as you say, we still have our health! My prayers for those who lost things that are harder to replace. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif