Subject: Day Three Without Power Date: Fri, 22 Jan 93 08:42:44 -0800 From: li@inigo.Data-IO.COM At home at last. It's funny how much one discovers that one misses things like light enough to read by, music, the TV, and having something that will wash dishes, wash clothes, dry stuff, heat the house, heat the hot tub, and keep things Cold. Or even simply be able to go straight home instead of taking all the back routes. The freezer and fridge are the reasons we've moved over to John's parents' house, they are off on vacation for a while, their house has power, and they had enough freezer room for all our freezer stuff. Power to our house will still probably be out until the beginning of next week, they say. Sigh... I think Mary Kuhner was right... Seattle got jealous of all the national attention the Californias are getting for all their rain. Not only did the wind storm come through at 70+ mph and blast everything, but, this morning, there is *snow* coming in. Power went down all over the building, Tuesday at 10:30. Everything ground to a halt. When I tried to get home (John had a meeting that could still work without power as there were enough windows in the building to make that easy.) there was a tree lying on the powerlines that I could get under, but then three trees gang tackled a powerpole and brought down a whole *web* of wires... imposible to pass, as the whole mess lay across the whole road. So up the hill to see a forest of fir suddenly have *sunshine* in it, as half the trees in there had fallen over. There were five other trees *down* along the way home, but folks had chainsawed through the centers of them so that cars could pass through. Last summer was so dought striken a *lot* more trees fell in this windstorm than in any other I've seen. There were a couple huge firs that had taken corners off houses, there was an alder draped pictoresquely across another house, a maple branch decided to visit the people *in* the house it had once given shade to... sigh... weird to see so much destruction. The dirt road to our house had four alders down on it, small ones, luckily, so the Cricket waited, patiently, while I dragged the carcasses aside. The drive way had one alder down on it and a couple of maple and fir boughs. I was muddy by the time the CRX made it into the shadow of the garage. Fezzik's run was dumped on by the three firs in it, and the plastic cover was torn off its frame. Fezzik was soaked and rather glad to see me, he bounded out when I came up and, together, we wandered around the house and were glad we'd taken the rotted maple out the summer before. There were no big branches, no nasty falls around the place. A tree or three *had* fallen in the ravine, and one tree now stands at about a 60 degree angle with the ground... We then wandered back out to the main road, and from the top, there was a fir cradelled on the powerlines at the top as well as another big tangle just a little ways down. Sigh... It's such a huge mess I'm not that surprised that they still haven't touched it three days later. There are 'Road Closed' signs on each end, and it seems that folks are able to get to most people's houses by going around the falls. Tuesday night we wandered off the Plateau and found that city center Redmond had power, but all around the town was dark. The town was *mobbed*, and *all* the eateries were completely packed. The shopping center around the Safeway (grocery store), Ernst (do-it-yourself tool and hardware store), and PayLess (drugstore) was a mad house of activity. We ran into the Payless to try and find a battery powered radio, but they were sold out down to their $50+ models with full tape capabilities. All we wanted was a batery powered radio... Our favorite Thai restaurant, which normally is very empty, was completely packed. Good for them, bad for us. We ordered food to go and waited in the car for a good 35 minutes until it was done. We listened to the Sonics game in the car, and when we finally did get our dinner, we ran over to the Radio Shack and found ourselves a pocket sized battery powered just-radio. We then wandered back through the maze of fallen trees and downed powerlines back to the house, where we ate by candlelight, listened to the game and then did crossword puzzles and knitting by candle light. The woodstove did a fine job of heating our bedroom and the loft. By Thursday most of the town centers had power. Issaquah, south of us, was a notible exception. Woodinville, to the north of Redmond, had power, so all the soccer folks were able to play indoor soccer. Nice to get out and *run* off the accumilated adrenaline of a day. On the way back from soccer we saw a tow truck pulling a Buick with the trunk flattened down to the wheels by a tree that had fallen on it. Once back, a friend told us about clearing out his driveway in a heavily wooded area in Duvall (east and north of us) and watching a neighbor creep towards him on their dirt road in his pickup. When the pick up got near, our friend saw that the *entire* back of the cab had been smashed in and all the windows blown out. The guy had been helping other folks clear trees out of the main road, and the group had heard some creaking and cracking up in the branches. Everyone had dove for their cars and tried to drive away, and this guy had gotten a branch right on the back of the cab. Barely inches away from his head... Sigh. At least we aren't as badly off as the folks that had trees punching holes in their houses and the folks who don't have woodstoves or those who don't have firewood. So, we're surviving, the house has no damage. Fezzik is hale and happy. We stayed at John's parents last night and plan to do so until power comes up again at our house. We'll still be visiting our house to feed Fezzik, water the plants, get our mail and newspaper and bring Fez with us for the evenings. He seems to take to new surroundings like a duck to water. It's *nice* having a furry kid that doesn't spook, in the least, to new environments... Life. Hope this finds everyone safe and with reading light. Grin... -- Phyllis