Wind storm in the Northwest

B

B Finnigan

Joined
Jan 16, 2006
Messages
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Did all the members in the Pacific Northwest make it through our wind storm OK? My power went out on thurs. afternoon and is still out. So far my generator has drank up 35 gallons of gas. No wind damage here and I hope everyone made it OK without any damage.

It is still a mess around here with trees down, no traffic lights, wires down, homes smashed by trees and 1.2 million homes without power. And to add insult to injury the temps dropped to below freezing and in many areas.

My borometer dropped from 1013 to 983 mb in 16 hours and my home weather station recorded a 67 MPH gust at 2:00 AM fri.
borometerandcoins013.jpg


Video of a plane trying to land at SeaTac airport in the wind. There may have some underwear changes needed for the passengers.
http://www.komotv.com/home/video/4911216.html?video=YHI&t=a
 
Thursday night was quite a storm and downed trees and powerlines all over the Portland area. I was very fortunate, though. The lights flickered several times but never went out. Friday morning is trash pickup in my neighborhood and, believe it or not, some people wheeled their bins out Thursday evening. The result is that there was a lot of trash strewn about. The neighbors a few blocks away had a long section of their fence just blow over.

At one point on Thursday afternoon, to try and get a feeling of what was coming, I checked the buoy reports and noticed that about half of them were listed as "not reporting" which primarily meant that their data were do erratic as to be deemed malfunctions.
 
It was quite a mess here, too...The coast had winds gusting up to 90 MPH! One guy in McCleary (about 33 miles from me) was killed when a large tree smashed through the trailer he & his girlfriend were staying in. I was lucky enough not to lose power, eventho it did flicker quite a few times.
 
The power company just told us it could be two weeks before we get our power back. To make things worse we are having to take care of our neighbors who are clueless about how to prepare for this type of mess. They have no heat, running water (well), refrigeration or even a corded phone.

I just got done wiring up a 12 vt inverter for them so they can run thier pellet stove off of a deep cycle.

Anyone that is not prepared for long term power outages should be watching the news from up here and seeing how bad it sucks. I am not even sure my generator will hold up for two weeks. It's a Honda so I am optimistic.
 
I have power at my house but we lost power to much of the outlying area. Most of our remote sites (telephone equipment) have battery back up but after that, we run generators to maintain service to our customers. I'm also on call to locate burried phones lines for the power co when they replace broken poles. Needless to say, I've been pretty busy. But not near as busy as the power co.
 
All is good over here on the east side of Washington.

We had trees come down on houses, power outages, ect.

Gusts hit around 55 MPH.

I was up most of the night keeping an eye on a few large trees on my property, and listening to the radio traffic from P.D. and fire.

Power is restored, and no major injuries were reported.
 
B Finnigan said:
The power company just told us it could be two weeks before we get our power back. [...]

Anyone that is not prepared for long term power outages should be watching the news from up here and seeing how bad it sucks. [...]
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It's bad enough in Florida after a hurricane, but what you're going through is more like what Y2K was supposed to be like -- everything dead in the middle of a winter's freeze.

What's the food supply like? I guess they can run trucks in.
 
There has not been any problems with food since there were quite a few stores that never lost power. Alot of stores are running generators so they are in limping stage. My wife took her grandmother shopping and they had to use a flashlight in the store.

We have two neighbors that are senior citizens about 1/4 mile away that we are also taking care of.
 
We're out on Anderson Island in the Puget Sound. We were without power from Thursday night until Saturday. I'm at the south end of the island so we got power back Saturday morning but 75% of the island is without power until probably Tuesday or Wednesday.

We faired okay because we don't have a lot of trees around our house and we have a woodstove to heat & cook on.

Some houses on the island were cut in half, all the way to the foundation by large trees. Power lines down everywhere, it looks like a bomb hit the place. We ran out of gasoline and propane yesterday.

I'm a FEMA emergency manager so I was on the horn all last night with Pierce County Emergency Operations and got us an emergency fuel & propane delivery and a 220v generator for a neighborhood that needs the generator to pump their well system. They'll be without power even longer.
 
I'm in pretty bad shape....first I've been able to get online since thursday (buddy has power here in Tacoma) I'm in Kitsap county and we have not had power since thursday afternoon. Temp was 36 in the house this morning (no gen unit.....I know, stupid) All my fish died:grumpy: and I have been busting my butt clearing out brush and trees. No damage to the house or the cars and the family is nice and warm at the brother in laws, so I am pretty fortunate. Good thing I have lots of mre's, plenty of batts for my surefire and NVG's and my extreme cold weather sleeping bag.:D
Hope we get power soon, as I have no running water (well) and I go back to work tomorrow.
 
We lost power Thursday night and it came back on Saturday morning. One of the biggest problems I have seen is getting gas. The gas stations that do have power have very long lines and many are running out of gas. I think enough power is getting back on that the gas situation has gotten better in the last day or so though.
 
I live in the southern part of Seattle which seems to have been hit quite a bit harder than the northern half. We had several 40-foot plus trees fall onto power/cars/houses just in our immediate neighborhood, without injuries, fortunately.

We've been without power since Thursday night. Winds hit 69 mph here, and hit 90 mph in Long Beach where we have a place. Our neighbor in Long Beach lost part of their roof.

The accounts I've read of the woman drowning in Madison Park were mind-bogglingly horrific.
 
Finaly got our power back WOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Unfortunately there are still about 350,000 homes without power. This is day five and people are starting to get mentaly and emotionaly exhausted. That and pretty dam cold to top it off. There are still quite a few areas without gasoline and very poor air quality since everyone is burning in thier fireplaces. Seems odd to have had 60 plus MPH winds and a couple days later the air is unhealthy.

It was a real PITA even though we heat with a wood stove and have a generator. It's a Honda 6500 watt and it still struggled to heat our hot water tank. I can only imagine what is like for people that don't have a wood stove or generator. Pure hell!

Be prepared so you do not become a burden on your nieghbors and friends. I didn't mind helping our neighbors but it only compounded the stress and inconvenience. The number of people that did not have the most basic things like flashlights, camp stoves and lanterns was pathetic. Make sure you have at least one corded phone in your house. I lended out three of them to friends and neighbors. These are all people that I warned them years ago to get one but they either thought I ws crazy or just never got around to it.

Just wait until that 9 point earthquake hits the Northwest (in the winter).
 
m1marty said:
........Hope we get power soon, as I have no running water (well) and I go back to work tomorrow.
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I put a hand pump on our well just in case our generator pukes out. Five years ago I had to use it when my POS Homelite generator decided to self destruct. The pump serves two functions. You can get water out of your well and it will warm you up since it takes mine 30-35 pumps just to get the water up to the spout.:eek: I have seen them for around $175-200. I got a traditional full sized cast iron pump and it was $650 but it will still be working long after I am gone.
 
Anyone here near Kent, WA. I have family there and have wondered what the conditions are there. Thanks for updates too and hope all of you fare well.
 
I live just outside of Kent and commute through Kent everyday. Kent was completely without power for 1 -2 days after the storm but is mostly restored now. Kent schools were closed on Friday and yesterday but are back open today.
 
its bad enough when a hurricane comes through here and we lose power in the summertime; I can only imagine what it must be like in the middle of the winter.

Prayers for all of you.
 
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