The Lorax Strikes Back

We had ourselves a little storm up here this weekend. If you consider "little" more like a hurricane-strength storm that brought western WA to a standstill as trees lay strewn across roads and powerlines and cars and houses. One million people were without power, and most still are. It began on Thursday afternoon while I was in Anacortes for work. A hundred of us were glued to the NOAA radar and weather reports, while the organizers of the drill we were participating in paid no heed to our anxiety and "graciously" offered to let us go by 3 p.m. Oh great, right as the rainstorm is sweeping up I-5 and everyone including Jesus is trying to get home! Thanks! For 2 hours I white-knuckled south on I-5 as my 2 coworkers fell fast asleep, entrusting me with their lives. The rain was so hard it was like having a fire hose on the windshield. Oh I get it! Who needs to see? We'll all just crawl down the interstate at 25mph and pray that we don't collide with everyone else who's driving blind. Oh and all that "lightning" I thought I saw brightening the sky....Oh no.... today I find out it was the glow from transformers expoding up and down Snohomish and King Counties. Somehow I managed to deliver my coworkers safely to our office parking lot and I left for home on the backroads of Edmonds, dodging huge rubber garbage cans and limbs pelting the road.

That night I split time between watching the news and keeping an eye on the alders outside my window that swayed like kelp in the fast currents of Deception Pass. I estimated how far they were from me and how fast I could run if I started to see them go. The news reporters were outside holding anometers that registered over 60mph, traffic was snarled, and BMWs floated helplessly in the flooded urban landscape. Sleep finally lured me to bed and I wondered what the world would be like the next morning.

My eyes opened at first light and I peered at my clock. It was on. It wasn't blinking. I have power! I got up and inventoried my surroundings. No gaping holes. No blasts of wind. No squirrels making themselves at home on my kitchen counter or abandoned crow nests on my couch. I turned on the tv and for the next 2 hours sat stunned at what had happened in such a short period of time. One million without power. Thousands of downed trees everywhere. State of emergency. The trees had attacked and apparently they had won.

Later that Friday afternoon I ventured out of my little hole with my bike to see what I could find. I figured the Burke would be impassable so I wound down to Lake Washington Blvd and it didn't take long to see cars smashed beneath huge evergreens or houses slashed like butter from falling trees. DOT crews had obviously been hard at work all morning because most of the roads I traveled had evidence of fallen trees being chainsawed to clear the way for traffic. The road through the Arboretum was closed, however. Ooohh that must have been a good one. I met Jane and we ventured up to the I-90 portal. Signs indicated the road up there was closed, but having bikes we paid no attention. But DAMN. We came upon a scene like no other. A huge old oak (?) had fallen across the road and slammed into 2 houses across the street, breaking through one house's roof, and literally smashing the other like a bug. I stood there with my jaw dropped. I couldn't believe the destruction. Crews worked machinery to extract the limbs from the smashed house. What had once been a family's sanctuary was now like a crippled doll house dropped from high above. Their belongings inside lay exposed and covered in debris, so immaterial to the swift maw of destruction around it. I talked to a neighbor and he said the tree fell around 5 a.m. and the mom was awake in the living room when she heard the cracking, and went into the next room to grab her twins. They all escaped ok.

There are other stories of people running out of gas and offering $25/gallon, of people buying generators only to run them inside and become exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning. Transformers up and down the state are destroyed and will take days, if not weeks, to replace. And there's a cold snap that the storm brought with it. So all those without power also have to find a way to stay warm. Everyone seems to be managing fairly well. The biggest complaint I've heard from my friends is their quest for morning coffee.

I'm infinitely lucky. The most I lost was my Internet connection for a few days. But I had power and I had heat. Complete luxuries. Janna and Duncan came over this afternoon like eastside refugees, enjoying the warmth and a hot shower. Mr. India called last night to make sure I wasn't huddling over my Pocketrocket stove to keep warm. It was so sweet to hear his voice and tell him everyone was ok and to relay the craziness of the experience. Zack moves to the adventures of India and in only 3 months he manages to miss 2 natural disasters back home. Hopefully I don't bring any with me when I get there in 12 days.