For those of you who didn't see my pre-storm and post-storm updates, welcome to the wrap up of our weather adventure this week.
Old Abe and I lost power just after 1am Friday morning in one of the worst windstorms to hit Western Washington in decades. At its peak, over a million customers of the principal utilities were without power (which translates to roughly two million people). When you consider that the population of Washington is just over six million, that equates to nearly a third of the state without power.
When we awoke Friday morning, the temperature in the house had already dropped into the 50s. This house is older and uninsulated, which means that when we move in the coming months insulation will be a top priority.
We lost the top twenty five feet of a huge fir tree in the backyard, which slammed down on the fence between our house and the neighbors', shattering it. Additionally, a tree on the other side of the backyard split in half, taking out another section of fence. At most recent estimate, we will not be able to have the debris removed and the fences rebuilt is late January or early February. This is because current estimates suggest somewhere in the neighborhood of four to six THOUSAND homes in western Washington with trees through rooftoops, many with severe structural damage. They're top priority, so we'll just count ourselves lucky...for now.
My brother (who many of you know is developmentally disabled) was pulled into emergency duty at the grocery store, working not only up to the beginning of the storm but being called back in to work through the height of it during the overnight hours. From noon on Thursday until noon on Friday, he ended up pulling about fourteen hours. Needless to say, when he got home he collapsed into bed in a cold house, only to get up and do it again Friday night into Saturday in a store that also lacked power. Because of the emergency situation, they ran their POS systems and emergency lighting on generators and sold non-perishables to customers through the entire ordeal. Ever the hero, my brother refused our offers to find a warm place for Friday night, choosing to remain at work.
Old Abe and I, on the other hand, called a friend in Everett (30+ miles north of Seattle) and had her find us a hotel room. We nailed one of the last rooms at the Holiday Inn in downtown Everett. While there, we met several people whose houses were nearly demolished by falling trees, including a couple whose house had been speared from top to bottom by a seventy five foot tree top.
Saturday morning we called the local (a mile away) grocery store and found out they had electricity. SCORE! Um, not. We gave up our hotel room and drove the forty five minutes home, only to find that the store did indeed have power, but we did not. As it turned out, the high tension lines strung on the street where my brother lives and only a block west of us were snapped in several places and draped over houses in others, spanning about a four block long area.
Old Abe is the proud but somewhat negligent owner of a 6500-watt Generac generator that hadn't been started in the three years since he moved from the midwest. No matter...we dumped a little gas in from the gas can and I lit that puppy up! Downside: the house isn't wired for a generator, so we had to run three extension cords off a grounded splitter to get things going. We had a little juice through the evening and into the night, and were able to make coffee, have lights and some space heaters going. But the gas stations in the area that had power soon ran out of gas, and even the restaurants and grocery stores started running out of food. By 10am Sunday we were at the end of our rope, and so in a last ditch effort called our corporate retreat center (which has its own 100-room hotel) and managed to nail a room just after their power came back on.
We spent Sunday afternoon and night in the warmth and comfort of a hotel room. A HOT BATH!! Warm beds...television...hot food. We were very, very lucky.
Monday I had to leave our cozy nest to take my brother back to work (a half hour drive) Since Old Abe was getting off work about the same time, I had him take a bus from Seattle home. While he was on the bus, I drove by the house and noted it was still dark. But when I rounded the corner to check on my brother's house, I spied....the repair crews!!! I could tell in the waning daylight that they were close to wrapping up, which to me could only mean that electricity was near. I drove to the bus stop to pick Old Abe up just after 5:00, and we drove back to the house. Just five minutes earlier it had been dark, but now we could see the kitchen lights through the front window. SUCCESS!
Unfortunately, we were already booked for another night in our cozy corporate roost. And my team had relocated a meeting at which I was required to the conference center there, making my presence mandatory this morning. In addition, I'd only left to take my brother to work, so all of our stuff (tons of it...laundry, PCs, luggage, etc.) was still there. So I returned there last night while Old Abe stayed home. He took the day off from work to clean the house, which was a total disaster. The biggest problem was smoke damage from the fireplace. The chimney wasn't drawing properly, and the whole house smelled awful. It took forty five minutes of diligent work, but my darling, wonderful husband managed to clean out the fireplace and the walls around it (which were brown with smoke and soot). He's also emptied all the yucky food from the fridge and vacuumed, dusted, done laundry and cleaned the bathrooms. I returned home tonight laden with the detritus of our relocation to a clean, lit, warm home. Sorry, ladies...there's only one Old Abe, and he's MINE!
The BIG downside to all of this is that I feel horribly guilty. Tonight, there are still over 150 thousand people in our area without power, some as close as six blocks away. As has been the case all week, the overnight lows are dropping into the twenties and thirties, which means these homes are freezing cold inside. When we got the furnace back up and running last night, it was forty three in here. I just wish I knew someone who needed a place to go, because we have a beautiful, empty guest bedroom. Unfortunately, it would appear that, of all the people we know in the area, we were the last to return to normal.
The net result of all of this is that Old Abe and I are now working on a preparedness plan. For those of you who live in the area or in any area that's prone to disaster, we strongly encourage you to do the same. We had flashlights and batteries, spare blankets and water. But here are some
examples of what we didn't have:
- A battery or crank powered radio. If we wanted to know what was going on, we had to go out to the car.
- Full tanks of gas in cases when you know something like this may happen. We were ok, but one car had 1/2 tank, and while that's not bad, it's not ideal, either.
- Winter driving gear. We could have packed up and driven over the passes to the eastern part of the state, which wasn't as hard hit, and found a more long-term lodging. But we didn't have chains or cables for the tires, which was required up there in the snow this weekend.
- Alternative cooking means. We're going to be buying a butane-powered camp stove and spare cylinders this week.
- An old fashioned corded phone. Cordless phones are unusable when the power is out, even when phone service is unaffected.
- Contacts within our neighborhood. We don't know any of our neighbors despite living here for three years. If we'd had someone to touch base with Saturday morning, we'd have known the power was still out and been able to remain in Everett.
- In our case, we have a generator. We will know next time to buy more and larger gas cans and to fill them before the storm.
Lastly, we need to get all of our contact information for friends and coworkers both in state and out onto our cell phones. Cell service was spotty until Sunday evening, but at least we could get through and let people know what was up. And if we'd had power earlier, we could have offered to take in those who didn't.
Well, that's our tale. The holiday shopping is not done, we don't have a tree up yet, and we may still have a rough week ahead owing to yet another storm tomorrow night. The storm is nowhere near as bad as last weeks', but with so many trees weakened and/or tilted or partially uprooted, we may be back in the same boat all over again Thursday morning. But we'll be no worse off than the hundreds of thousands of people still shivering in the cold tonight.
Have a wonderful holiday season. We'll never take a lamp or hot cup of coffee for granted again.
Much love,
Auntie