HAMBers affected by the Seattle-area storm

Many of you saw the news reports about the storm that hit the Seattle area late on Thursday, December 14, which resulted in six deaths and left as many as 1,500,000 people without electricity.

As of Sunday morning, the power company in the area, Puget Sound Energy, had restored power to 400,000 of the 700,000 homes and businesses that had been without it since the storm, but half of King County is still without power.

The company that hosts my site is in the area that was hit by the storm, so the site went down on Thursday night and still hasn't come back online yet. I'm sure it will be back up soon.

I could be really pissed about this, but I consider myself to be lucky down here in Arizona. I've spent the morning working in the garage in my usual T-shirt and jeans.

Which other HAMBers were affected by the storm?

Dave Mann
(602) 233-8400
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

What a wild ride it was. Had to drive 25 miles at midnight to make sure the shop was still standing. Living in Florida for 35 years, and I never got worried with hurricanes. "actually used to go and surf when they came through" But this was pretty hairy. All is ok, and the cars and shop are ok.

 

just from what i saw on during the seahwaks/49ers game looked like one hell of a storm. i can only imagine the destruction it caused

 

It was pretty bad around here, especially outside the city. Most everyone is still without power and lots of trees came down on houses and garages. The same day gave us over 2" or rain, an all-time record for 24 hours. The power companies are saying that it will be a week or more before everything is back on, and it's in the 30's today but clear. Rain coming in a couple of days, so getting everything dry and covered is the plan. I didn't lose anything but I was lucky. My sister has power so I'm staying here until we're back up. Gas stations that are open have run out of gas and people are doing stupid, risky things to stay warm. Like building a fire on the basement floor, or using a barbeque for heat-good way to die quickly. At least the malls are open so everyone can still go shopping,

 

this stuff was wild! owning and maintaining a quality generator is a must if you live here. i did notice something new after this storm, the arizona dessert was calling my name!cool weather is fine but cold sucks. getting old.

 

I just got power back on an hour ago. No electricity REALLY sucks!! Our power went out thurs nite about 10:00. Its sooo nice having heat again.
Another one of those things We take for granted. Alot of people were delivering hot coffee and chocklate to the lineman. They have been staying at it since Friday morning. A big THANKS to those Guys. FEDER

 

You can thank all the F'n crackheads that are stealing the downed power lines to recycle the copper. Thats making it take longer to get the lights on. Lets hope they grab a live one!

 

the company I work for (a newspaper company) has been running on generators in that location

 

We are still without power in Woodinville, and not expected to have any until late week. A 100 foot fur fell on our house, it's a hell of a wakeup call at 2:00 AM !! It was not fun to go out in the storm to check it out while more trees was leaning over me !

We are still lucky, after being a logger for the day, I ended up with a few holes in the roof that can be patched, my neighbor had a tree slice his house in half. Nobody hurt, but that sucks.

I had to move my computer and office to a different location in order to be open for business on Monday morning.

All the best to all Washingtonians that had to deal with this.

 

my girlfriend is up there as the general manager for a hotel in kirkland and she's been out of power since tues. i just talked to her tonight (one of the couple times she even had signal to let me know she's ok) and the power is mostly back at her hotel. it's been scary as hell wondering how my baby is doing. it's funny how different things are by the region though. a storm like that is an almost monthly occurance in indiana where i grew up but in an area where it's not that common, it's amazing the damage it can do.

hope everyone up there ends up ok, good luck guys and gals!

 

We lost power 1:00 AM Friday morning. Shortly afterward I heard a tree fall but a solid thump with no crash as it hit. At daylight I checked and though we lost one major tree and several small trees and branches nothing was hit and none of my cars had moved or otherwise been damaged.

Power came back on this morning at about 1:15AM. In the meantime we lived by camping out at home.

 

I moved my old motorhome in line with one of my trees, but no luck. Nothing but a few branches and trash in the yard. A few trees down in Spokane, saw a crushed Explorer, but nothing major this far east.

 

we got hit pretty hard up here too, (we're about a hunnerd yards from 'the boundary') snow and storm force winds the week before, which knocked our power out,(cold!) then the storms this past thursday/friday...trees down, but all safe...john

 

It's good that we didn't lose anybody. This storm had winds of 60 to 80 mph and was terrible for a lot of people.

For a lot of us, one of the worst aspects of all this was not being able to communicate with people.

It looks like things are getting back to normal up there.

My site is back up now, and it was a relief to see that nothing was lost. During the time that the servers were down, some of my E-mail must have bounced back as being undeliverable. Tonight the company that hosts it has posted the following on their site:

Dave Mann
(602) 233-8400
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

As Tower of Power sang back around 1975, "Can't cut loose, without that juice."

Dave
http://www.roadsters.com/

 

Im just north of Woodinville and we lost power at 4:15 PM on Thursday. I already had the generator hooked up to the panel so all was good. We have natural gas heat and all lights worked with micro and coffee. We were really suffering!! LOL. We actually have more trees than most neighbors and trees that stand over 140ft tall!!!! So we were actually really worried but as luck had it, we only lost 2 trees. We were popular in the morning with coffee to our neighbors and things were great until the comunity well pumps shut down even with the generator running them taking a shit. My neighbor that I hang with went and got artisian spring water from the natural spring at 2:30 AM and dropped us off 10 gallons. We also have 400 gallons of hot tub water to flush down the crap that could have piled up in our toilets. Cable tv went out at 10:00pm Thursday night one minute before the 100 news!!! Doh!!!!. But we still had the internet. It was pretty devastating to say the least after the storm had past. One of my 140 ft trees snapped at the 30ft level and flew north crushing my neighbors cyclone fence and the top of a 120ft tree busted off and fell 95 ft onto my RV cover, missing the RV inside? I still cant believe that one as the tear in the cover starts half way at the top and is ripped 15 feet down the side. Our neighborhood has a ton of trees down but I think everyone lucked out this time with no house damage. Power came back on Saturday late. All is good for my family but I really feel for the people without heat or power since now its getting below freezing.

 

Our power came back on at 7:30 tonight after being out since Thursday at 11:00 PM. I was not looking forward to another freezing night. We have a gas water heater and stove so not a problem with showers and cooking. We heated our house solely with a woodstove for 3 days so it felt good to get the furnace turned back on to really warm up. All the trees were cut down on the property next to us four years ago, so no damage to our house or cars. We did have to throw out some food in our fridge but saved most of it. It's very nice to have power again. My hat is off to the utility linesman who have worked so hard to restore power to us. Keith

 

This storm is running me ragged.

I'm a claim adjuster for a large insurance compay. I handle mostly mobile home claims.

The flooding in early November, wind storm on 11/15, snow storm, the high winds on 11/26, and now this last storm....they're killing me.

I'm working a shit ton of hours to try and stay on top of my work load.

Glad to hear none of yout Hambers got hurt...That's more than can be said for some of my customers...

 

We certainly had some wild times here too. Fortunetly no damage at my house or shop. Did see on our local news, a high dollar model a, inside a garage, with an enormous tree through the it.Sorry for the owner .

 

It's been crazy here, my power came back on last night (Sat.) just as I left for the bar. It had been out since Thursday night and meant we had no septic either! SUCK. My parents are looking at another few days before their power comes back on, as some of the failures in Bonney Lake were underground. But everyone is safe, (finally getting to charge my cell, I called everyone yesterday) and that's what counts.

 

I was in a C17 engine replacing rivets when power went out. That was fun...

 

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=149133



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Dave wrote:

"As Tower of Power sang back around 1975, "Can't cut loose, without that juice."

Dave
http://www.roadsters.com/

They also said: "you can't walk a straight line wearing crooked shoes" I love Tower of Power...what a funky horn section.

We had no power for 44 hours, lost a lot of shingles, but were lucky. Only one place between us and the ocean, and it did not blow down this time.

John www.ghiaspecialties.com

 

My Mom lives in Bothell, just north of Woodinville. She's still out of power (thank god for woodstoves) and just managed to get a giant cedar cleared from the front of her driveway. No damages this time. Last bad storm we had when I wa living there, a cedar fell through our kitchen and another one crushed my 69 Pontiac... Let's just say there have been a few "trims" since then. Glad no one was hurt.

 

I've had power thru it all! Wind of 80 MPH is scary! I put $3000 in the bank on Thurs AM, but loss of power at my bank has me BROKE! Found my hot tub cover at the neighbors house..............OLDBEET

 

Power went out Thursday afternoon and came back on Sunday afternoon. Nothing like being inside a house with a temp of 43 degrees. Glad to have power back.

 

Stay strong my friends and good luck there!

 

Lost power for three days. My generator crapped early sunday morning.
I'm shopping for a big ass diesel standby so next time I can take a shower and keep warm.
Paul

 

I was one of the few lucky ones that didn't lose power,
(I'm in the U district in North Seattle)

but my co-worker is still out of power, they have a well with an electric pump,
when they hear that wind is comming they fill their bath tub with water so they can flush the toilet, they've been without power so long they ran out of tub water.

I was working on a nice big house on the east side, they had a nice looking generator sitting in their garage, I figured they were set, but they didn't have any gas! (I'm thinking Mr Homeowner is not the type that would siphon gas out of his rig) and there were too many trees down for them to get out to the gas station, the roads around their house were all blocked with trees,
when the roads finally got cleared, and they went to the gas station, the gas stations were all closed too,(no power),
the gas stations around here were crazy for a few days, the ones that were open had long lines, some stations run out of gas, I saw a lot of people filling gas cans, and the price of gas instantly went up 20, 30 cents or more.

I read in the paper about a guy in Kirkland that died from running his generator in his livingroom!
and others trying to kill themselves running their charcoal barBQ in the house!

I was lucky the only effect on me was no work (no power at work) for a few days.

Dan

 

Since we live on this lil rock that loses power several times every year and we have gear for winter camping in the mountains, we were well prepared for the cold & lack of power. We were also much luckier than our Southern neighbors in that we got power back on Saturday, right as the temps were dropping out. Overall the neighborhood did well, just a couple downed tree parts, a banged up fence, and some shingles here & there. We got off easy,...
This time of year I always keep my chainsaw in the truck, the gas cans & propane topped off, and between a rain basin and hot tub we're set for basic water needs, just glad the bottled water delivery came by the day before the storm!
Still, it blows my mind that with how common it is to lose power in some areas, it seems like 99.9% of the people are totaly unprepared for even one night wiothout power. As for the folks that fire up a charcoal BBQ for heating/cooking or run a generator inside (why? is it gonna freeze?), well, the term natural selection keeps coming to mind. Just hope they dont kill anyone that doesn't know any better, it's a sad sad thing,...

I have a couple suggestions, helpfull stuff, from expereinces spending alot of time where power is questionable all winter, as well as a few long trips to Antarctica:
1. A big steel tub or barrel kept under your roof drain spout, will give you water for your toilet & basic cleaning needs. Also a good source of water for your pets and if you HAVE to you can boil it for drinking.
2. Generators are nice, but if you cant afford one, or run out of gas, a few oil lamps never hurt. Sure, propane lanterns are brighter and dont smell funky, but they eat valuable gas. Parafin lamp oil is cheap, safe to store in the house, and if you get a good lamp, lasts longer between fills.
3. Heater buddy indoor propane heater, works wether you have a generator or not, no cords involved. Ours has been a life saver and the best $80 we spent by far. The life saver thing is twofold: One because it's small, portable, and keeps a room comfortable. Two because it has about 4 different safeties on it including a CO sensor so you dont get yourself dead (Keep a couple 4-packs of 1lb propane bottles stashed, we sold out of them on the island in under 2 hours).
4. Propane camp stove, if you have a range vent you can use it on your stove top in the house to cook and they kick out a good amount of clean heat as well. Cooking on your outdoor BBQ works of course, but many of them dont work for poop in the wind.
5. Get a bunch of chemical hand warmers, a couple inbetween 2 pairs of socks when you're sleeping makes a world of difference! I've also used them in my hat and of course between a couple pairs of gloves

Figgure all that cost me under $200, and can be reused year after yea. Was money well spent, even if I'd rather get car parts with it.