Here is a little story of the first La Nina storm of this La Nina winter. It was a horrible nightmare, but we'll look back on it as a nice story of Thanksgiving 2010.
In case you don't know, Western Washington and the Seattle area rarely get snow. In fact, we got NONE last year. There are, so I've heard, about three plows for our entire county. Our county, across the sound from Seattle, as well as Seattle and the entire area do no salt or sand roads.
On Sunday, the forecast was for some snow flurries into Monday morning. So I got the kids all bundled up (it was to be freezing the next few days, another rare thing) and we went out to play with what snow we could before it stopped.
The snow started to get heavier, so I checked the news in the late morning. An additional 1/4 to 1/2 inch was expected. The people in this area were freaking out about this little amount and now I know why. Imagine living in an area of rolling hills, many bordering on the size of small mountains. Now SUBTRACT salt or sand or plows from a snow. OK, now ADD three inches of snow because the weather forecast was wrong.
John got off of work early, so around 4:30 we went out with the kids again to pull them in their sleds. The wind was just terrible and the temperature had dropped considerably. Evan screamed to go in, so I went around in some circles with Amelia again and managed to get a picture.
Unbeknownst to us, the entire area was in absolute chaos. First it was the snow. During the commute, vehicles couldn't get up the hills and slid down the hills. I later listened to the AM radio Monday night and listened to everyone calling in, still in their cars from 3pm. Many were forced to abandon, picked up by someone, that car was abandoned, and so on. This was both in Seattle, where I heard 12 hours, and around here, 6+ (we are talking a 5 mile commute).
But that wasn't our nightmare. A terrible windstorm began around the time we took the kids out and it got worse and worse. Our county was the worst hit with these winds and trees began to fall. These aren't the kind of trees back east. These are giant 100ft plus evergreens. And they took down our power lines. So at 6:30pm our power was gone and temperatures were to be at least zero with the wind chill. We bundled up and went to bed, having no idea the real cause of the power outage. We figured the power would come back any minute. Sooooo, morning comes and it's freezing. We sat in the car to eat breakfast and our neighbors had a fireplace going (more for decoration, but with a tiny vent) and were nice enough to invite us in for a few hours. Well, our next step was to find someplace to stay. Everyone we know lost power. Turns out 60,000 homes in the county are without power. That's like almost everybody. All these children and elderly. It was just terrible. The only area with power by us was the shopping/hotel area, so we jumped on one of the last rooms. There were shelters for people who needed them, but here is the other problem:
People can't get out of their neighborhoods! John tried both cars and got only three houses away (up) from us. In the right place at the right time, John managed to get pulled up the street by a giant white Ford 4X4 truck. (I used to hate white trucks because road raged rednecks in New Orleans always drove them, but this one was our redneck angel. I won't continue the grudge. Until like next week.) They came back down for us and drove the kids and I to the car. A neighbor with another large truck got the family with a baby out at the same time. In general, though, there is no way everyone with kids could've gotten out. I've heard stories of a guy boiling water on his grill and having his family huddle around the bucket. We haven't heard any of the bad personal stories. Yet.
Anyway, I know this happens to a lot of people. I just can't believe this wasn't on the national news. Thanks to utility workers from British Columbia, Oregon, and Washington (75 crews), most of us got power 48 hours later. These amazing people wanted us all to have Thanksgiving. The trucks couldn't get to the downed trees and power lines because of the snow/ice issue, so it was this giant battle of road crews and utility crews. And guys with chainsaws.
We were planning on going to a really nice buffet for Thanksgiving Dinner, but because of the roads we stopped at Safeway along with everyone else. What a long and tiring day today. Here is Amelia sleeping in the shopping cart holding a rack of pre-cooked ribs.
We have a lot to be thankful for. Neighbors, guys with chainsaws, safety, warmth. Everyone was just so nice. I heard that customers at IHOP started to help serve breakfast because some staff couldn't make it in.
We also learned that we need to go get some things from Lowe's. Seriously.
