How's our WA and OR members after "Big Blow 2006"

[Scottydont]

For those of you that don't know, WA and OR was hit with a 200 year windstorm where wind were clocked from 65-100 mph. I am in Edmonds 20 miles north of Seattle. The storm hit Thursday night and knocked our power to near 1.5 million homes in WA and OR. Our governor declared 17 counties as disaster areas today.

I was in Houston all week and had a travel day from **** taking 14 hours to get home last night. I was driving home from the airport and most of the Seattle area was dark. I was worried about my wife and two young kids. The silence during the outgage is downright erie. On the way home I was detoured from street to street because of downed power lines. My power was only off overnight but many are not so lucky. Two of my neigbors had cars crushed by falling trees. My internet service just came back online and It's getting down into the twenties tonight and I am worried about folks who do not yet have power.

Stay warm and do it safetly. We have already heard of many people exposing themselves to carbon monoxide.

Let me know how you all are doing. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.

[rickd]

Hey Scott, you guys over on the mainland got hit pretty hard - it looked especially bad in Seattle. Here on Vancouver Island we got clobbered pretty good too - especially down in Victoria where winds were clocked at well over 100kms. There are tens of thousands of people who still have no power.

I drove down to Victoria today and some areas of the highway look like a war zone - trees down everywhere. The hydro workers have been working night and day for about a week now due to the various storms we have had. They must be close to exhaustion.

Luckily for us, we didn't lose power during this windstorm - just lucky this time.

rick

[Whaler]

I lost power overnight but it came back about 10:30 Friday morning.
Like many others I am standing in line waiting for an insurance adjuster so I can get my roof repaired. No serious damage but I lost a bunch of shingles.

That was a good one and I slept through the worst of it.

[eddy merckx]

We live by the Hood Canal. For some reason we didn't lose power this time. We did get trapped in the neighborhood by a live high voltage wire lying on the street. Nobody wanted to drive over it to see what might happen.

I really feel for the PSE linemen during these huge outages. They do make really good money but they will work two or three days without sleep to get customers back on the grid. Can't imagine that kind of dangerous work during such nasty conditions.

Just heard on the news that there are 350,000 people still without power and its getting down to the 20s tonight.

Eddy

[Hoover]

We live about 3 miles east of Puget Sound north of Marysville, and the wind was nonstop blowing 60 to 80 mph. We were fortunate in that we only lost power for about 5 minutes. The previous storm 2 weeks ago, we were out of power for 4 days. It got rather chilly, trees were knocked down everywhere the eye could see. This storm there were pockets of really high wind, and unfortunately there was a loss of life.

[lrogers]

Everyone on the gulf coast can feel your pain; you guys got hit with an un-named hurricane. Hope you are able to get back on your feet quickly. As of last night, my B-I-L and family were still with out power.

[Ed62]

Whenever something like this happens, I always wonder how the people are coping. Especially the ones who are handicapped, have little kids, or are otherwise more endangered than the average person. Hopefully things will get back to normal before long. I wonder how the mountain climbers are holding out. It won't hurt to include them and their families in your prayers.

Ed

[Mrs. Wallnut]

We are about a 109 miles east of Seattle and thursday night we had high winds around here but for our area that is pretty normal, we live in a windy little valley. We didn't lose power until about 6:30 or so on friday morning. I got the older kids to school using flashlights and candles and my oil lamps.

Then sat it out for a couple of hours here thinking it might be on soon but then called Mark and he came home and took us to my parents house, in town because they still had power. If I had not been sick and coughing, and Thomas not coughing then I would have stayed home set the playpen up in the shop and built a fire and stayed out there. But I had been sick all week and Mark didn't think I needed to be getting cold.

Friday night by the time Mark got off work we had the power back on. So we faired okay over this way.

[TheRic]

....... If I had not been sick and coughing, and Thomas not coughing then I would have stayed home set the playpen up in the shop and built a fire and stayed out there. .......

You would have burnt the shop wood?!!!! I hope I'm missing something here!!!


Glad to hear everyone, so far, is OK.

[JR]

Man, you guys have been getting hammered this year.

Scott, it must have been frustrating as heck to be away from home when this thing hit. I do a fair bit of travel, too, and it always seems like the crisis meter gets pegged while I'm gone. Hang in there.

Good luck to all you Northwesterners. We have a number of friends in the area and are very concerned about your situation.

Keep a positive outlook and burn the hardwood only as a last resort!

JR

[Mrs. Wallnut]

You would have burnt the shop wood?!!!! I hope I'm missing something here!!!


Glad to hear everyone, so far, is OK.

Sorry forgot to clarify that the shop is heated by a wood stove and there is a pile of wood outside the shop.

I know better than to go in to the shop and just start grabbing wood and throwing it into the stove. Unless its in a specific box that I am allowed to use as kindling then I don't touch the wood out there.

[beep]

Live in Renton which is southeast of Seattle and have been without power since Thursday around 9:30pm. Fortunate to have a gas range and the water heater is gas also. Bought a generator years ago and it's come in good use these past few days. We're the only ones with lights on our block. Bought a couple of heaters Friday morning when HD opened. Went skiing yesterday with the family. Figured if we're going to be cold we'll enjoy ourselves being cold. Hope to have the power on soon.

Evan.

[GeekMom]

Had our power go out about midnight Thurs. night, the power came back on this afternoon. We didn't have any damage from the wind, although one of our neighbors had a tree fall on their home. No one was hurt, thankfully! We fared pretty well since we have a generator. Propane camp stove works very well, too. Nice to be back to 'normal' now.

[movnup]

We live in the city of Bellevue (10 miles across the bridge east of Seattle) and our power has been off since Friday @ 6:00 pm and they are saying it might be another two days yet !!! Luckily I have my own company in Seattle where the power is on so I brought the family in to camp out and we have the basics except for a shower. At home we have a gas water heater and fireplace which helped a little but it sure was cold getting out of the shower when the house is 40 degrees and it's 34 degrees outside.

This is starting to get a little nuts ... the wettest month in the history of the state last month, record flooding, and now I live in a big city with unlight skyscapers from record winds. I was reading the posts on the generators so maybe that will be the next project in the works. A little scary though as a bunch of people in the news had them outside their garage and now have C/O poisoning.

It was a lot simpler when I lived on the farm ... we would fire up the tractor powered generator to milk the cows, toss wood in the stove to keep the house warm, and heat hot chocolate on the stove top. Life in the big city !!!!

[mschrank]

We lost power at home on Thursday night. No heat so just bundled the kids up and put on an extra blanket or two. Lights came back on at 4:00 am so I thought all was well. Got to work and found most all of downtown was still without power...so I got the day off

No major damage to the house, but lots of small limbs and various other debris everywhere. We have a couple of big Doug-firs right next to the house...I always get a bit jumpy during high winds. I really need to get those taken out....