Seattle During a Windstorm

Before starting this post, I want to say that our sincere thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost their lives in last night’s storm, one of whom was a well-known voice in the Seattle arts community.

Owning a home in Seattle has some natural risks: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, mudslides, and now another danger appears to be…TREES. As some of you may know, there was a massive wind storm that hit the Pacific Northwest last night. The region saw gusts as high as 90 MPH that, in addition to knocking out power to roughly 700,000 residents, toppled numerous trees that fell across roadways, crushed cars, and tore through homes. There is a great slide show on King5.com if you’d like to see further pictures from the storm.

One of our very own, Marco Lopez, had the horrible experience of an 80-foot tree crashing through his home late last night (he informed us with an e-mail at 2:59 am). Here is his 1st hand account of the night:

"A massive 80ft. tree fell on our house and our neighbor’s house.  Luckily no one
was hurt, and we weren’t in the room that had the massive branch pierce through
the ceiling a few feet away from the bed.  Thank me for being a chicken, I was
afraid of all the pine cones that kept hitting the roof so we decided to sleep
downstairs shortly before the tree struck the house.

The
tree buckled our roof in two places and pierced it in many more.  We now are the
proud owners of lots of firewood, and yes, the tree has been massacred -
brutally.  It took brave tree trimmers over 6 hours to get the massive tree off
both houses and then another 3 hours to find and have someone come out to tarp
the roof and have us ready for the rain that’s coming this weekend.

All
in all, very glad no one was hurt when this behemoth decided to fall.  Also
thank the early 1900’s construction of the house that snapped the tree trunk
where it struck the house, it gave as well as it took."

Since I’m writing this blog post, it’s only fitting that I should mention my personal encounter with the storm. I planned to take the day off and go skiing at the Summit at Snoqualmie today — but it wasn’t meant to be. Last night, my neighbor and I sat down to watch World Trade Center only to have the house go black around 12:30 am, about an hour into the movie, due to the horrendous winds. Upon waking up around 8:30, my first inclination was to look online to see the conditions at the pass. Slight problem — no internet. Luckily, my friend had internet on his phone to look up the phone number.  When we finally called the Summit this morning — we found the ski facilities had no power either. No power = no working lifts. I’ve been anticipating hitting the slopes all week, but instead I find myself working away as usual, though from the comfort of my apartment today.

*Photo courtesy of King5.com