I finally escaped from the disaster that is Seattle. A piddly little wind storm and the power goes out for the entire greater Seattle area. I left Seattle and am now at the parent’s place in Oregon for Christmas.
My power went out late Thursday night. It was still out when I left 7 hours ago. They’re guessing that power might be restored to my apartment in two days (so power would be restored some time Wednesday, maybe). And I’m not even in one of the worst hit areas.
Good riddance Seattle.
This mock disaster showed just how ill prepared the Seattle area is for a real disaster (think earthquake). Useful communication to those who needed it was absolutely poor. There was no coordination with the local radio stations. The radio stations did their own thing and were more interested in filling the air with fluff than useful information. Most information seems to have been put on the web where it is all but useless to those without power.
Makes you wonder who did have power with the record outages with this storm.
We were without power for almost 48 hours (some neighborhoods around us are still dark), unfortunately my office had power so still had to work. Kids got Friday off due to no power at the schools.
Overhead transmission lines and the “Evergreen State” don’t mix well.
No, they posted the paper on the web. Nobody missed a thing.
Lose Internet access during an emergency or mock disaster and you discover that you can no longer get any information. Even the radio was referring people to the web for more information.
The radio was useless except for the traffic reports on the 4s.
I hope a lot of people complain to them about that. Don’t they remember radios are much more likely to run off batteries than computers? Sure, laptops have batteries, but not for very long if you can’t charge them!
We had a similar wind disaster on Long Island in September 1985. But instead of a piddly wind storm this one was called Hurricane Gloria. It was a disaster for LILCO, the Long Island Lighting Company. Some people were without power for up to six weeks because there was so much damage, and so many un-trimmed tree limbs. That disaster was a big part of what led to the public taking over the company a few years later. That and a failed nuclear plant (Shoreham). The plant was built and running ($5 billion), but was never allowed to go online because of lack of a way to evacuate people from downwind in the event of an accident. To get off of Eastern Long Island you have to drive west…
They were apologetic about that as they said it. But still…
The site they were referring to was the PSE service alert page that has current status and updates. Their suggestion was to phone a friend who has power and internet access and have them read that page to you to keep you updated on the status of your area. Nice. Why not just read that info over the radio every two hours at predictable and consistent times so people would know when to tune in and get that info? That would have been nice. There is lots of information there that I never ever heard from any of the radio reports.
It also would have been nice if they would announce shelter locations and updates on shelter information at regular and predictable times instead of just randomly announcing that information throughout in little drips.
As it was you could end up listening to the radio for three hours straight and not be any more informed than you were before. Most of the radio was fluff and useless, or at best a horribly inefficient way of getting information out.
I do know this is all minor in terms of inconvenience compared to after big disasters like a hurricane. My power will be back on within a week after the storm. It’s something that would be easy to survive (other than for elderly and very young). I had plenty of batteries on hand for the flashlights, food (freeze dried and other easy to prepare stuff that doesn’t even need cooking), water was still running, warm sleeping bags and blankets. I have supplies on hand because I go camping for unicycling trips. Those supplies double as emergency supplies. It was all more comfortable and warmer than camping at Moab for Moab Muni Fest. But I’m disappointed in how information was gotten out to those affected. It’s the not being informed part that is frustrating.
Yeah, there was a lot of confusion and the infrastructure was unprepared, but some radio stations excelled. KIRO 710 AM took their job very seriously, and they were All Blackout, All The Time. My son and I were fortunately only out of power for two days, but we powered up the radio with batteries, tuned into 710 KIRO, and learned everything we needed to know. What areas had power, how bad the lines were for gas or supplies in those areas with power, hotels or motels that had vacancies, where you could buy generators and the associated generator theft problem that was happening, and most importantly, how much of the information the “official sources” like Puget Sound Energy was valid and what was BS. They had people calling the official numbers, checking the official websites, and driving all over the place reporting back in on what was happening out in The Wild. Oh yeah, and not that we were tempted, but they also told us what a stupid idea it would be to haul a generator or our Weber Grill inside the house, since everyone that had tried that so far was in either the ER or the morgue due to carbon monoxide poisoning. They were the voice of reason in the midst of white noise and sirens.
I have co-workers that are still out of power now entering day 6, and others that have lost their houses due to 100 foot pines falling onto them. It’s serious shit up here right now, and the two day blackout “adventure” that my son and I had pales in comparison to what many have gone through. This disaster brought out the best in a lot of people, and the worst in some losers that couldn’t seem to get by without stealing a generator or violating basic traffic ettiquette. I’m thankful to stations like KIRO that took their role as lifelink seriously, and to the many rescue and power workers that are running non-stop trying to get the area back to normal.
Where DID my generator go, Blackwood? To whom did you sell it?
We never lost power. JC was over that night doing geek-fu. The aura was about him. The next day we looked out a rear window and saw that a fence board had blown off. I went out to re-attach it and, on closer inspection, found that one of the fence posts was ripped out of the ground and that section of the fence was about to fall over into the next yard. Karen and I spent the next couple of hours shoring it back up and repairing the fence…after we cleared all of the scattered lawn furniture out of the way. We had it easy.
We lost our power at approximately 1 am on Saturday, and then regained it at 8 am on Sunday. Our fireplace puts out little if any heat, so our house was down to 45.2 degrees for quite a while. I used my scanner radio (connected to the car via an adapter) to listen to the school buses and truckers on the road, which gave me the best possible account of where the trees were down, etc. The “regular” AM/FM radio was not much of a help at all, though, because they weren’t about to focus on little towns such as ours. Definitely a wake up call for Seattle and the surrounding areas. The worst of it was listening to my Mom complain about not being able to vacuum…
Mom’s so picky about it, she probably wouldn’t let me due the the fact that I’d do something “wrong.” I leave the cleaning and decorating to her - that’s her thing.
I used my scanner radio (connected to the car via an adapter) to listen to the school buses and truckers on the road, which gave me the best possible account of where the trees were down, etc. The “regular” AM/FM radio was not much of a help at all, though, because they weren’t about to focus on little towns such as ours. Definitely a wake up call for Seattle and the surrounding areas. The worst of it was listening to my Mom complain about not being able to vacuum…
