NickKmet
Regular
So for those of you that don't know, I'm from Washington, which took an absolute beating from a massive snow storm this past week. While Eastern Washington, where I'm currently at school, has seen less than a foot of snow (and things are operating pretty much as normal, at least until it starts warming up and we get inches of ice on the road), Western Washington has been hammered, and shit isn't good.
While it's always fun to laugh at inept Seattle drivers crashing their cars after a few inches of snow, what you don't often hear about is what happens a bit further south, about 60 miles or so away where my parents live, in Olympia (well actually Tumwater, but Olympia is the closest recognizable city). 2 Days ago my mom sent me a picture of the snow. Here it is:
That's about 16 inches of snow (that's what it was yesterday morning when my dad measured). The snow is usually worse in the south because Seattle and the Northern part of Washington is shielded party by the Olympic mountain range, and just the way weather patters work on the coast there. In the southern part of the state, where my parents live, they tend to get a bit more precipitation.
My parents lost power at 2:00 PM yesterday and still don't have it back, and are not expecting it back for several days. When they went out to Taco Time the other night for dinner, they got their food, and power promptly went out there. About one third of the residents in tumwater are without power (about 5,000), close to 30,000 have no power in the greater Olympia area, and almost 300,000 don't have power in Western Washington.
This morning, my parents went down to city hall, so my dad could meet with emergency services to declare a state of emergency (he's the mayor of Tumwater). My mom went with him so she could warm up as it is very cold at our house. While there, they got a phone call from one of our neighbors letting them know that one of the large walnut trees in our yard had fallen, barely missing the house. The second is not doing so well either, I guess. The first tree fell thanks to the freezing rain they got last night. I'll have pictures of that once my parents get home today (won't be for a good number of hours).
Anyway, things are pretty bad. Just felt like letting you all know, since most people assume that since we can't handle the snow here (and really, most people can't), that reports have been over-blowing how bad it is. While some of you from the Midwest or Alaska might scoff at 16 inches of snow, know that all it takes to cancel school in western Washington is 2-3 inches. When they get 16 inches in 36 hours, things are bad, simply because it's unusual and the infrastructure is not set up to handle it.
Yup.
While it's always fun to laugh at inept Seattle drivers crashing their cars after a few inches of snow, what you don't often hear about is what happens a bit further south, about 60 miles or so away where my parents live, in Olympia (well actually Tumwater, but Olympia is the closest recognizable city). 2 Days ago my mom sent me a picture of the snow. Here it is:
That's about 16 inches of snow (that's what it was yesterday morning when my dad measured). The snow is usually worse in the south because Seattle and the Northern part of Washington is shielded party by the Olympic mountain range, and just the way weather patters work on the coast there. In the southern part of the state, where my parents live, they tend to get a bit more precipitation.
My parents lost power at 2:00 PM yesterday and still don't have it back, and are not expecting it back for several days. When they went out to Taco Time the other night for dinner, they got their food, and power promptly went out there. About one third of the residents in tumwater are without power (about 5,000), close to 30,000 have no power in the greater Olympia area, and almost 300,000 don't have power in Western Washington.
This morning, my parents went down to city hall, so my dad could meet with emergency services to declare a state of emergency (he's the mayor of Tumwater). My mom went with him so she could warm up as it is very cold at our house. While there, they got a phone call from one of our neighbors letting them know that one of the large walnut trees in our yard had fallen, barely missing the house. The second is not doing so well either, I guess. The first tree fell thanks to the freezing rain they got last night. I'll have pictures of that once my parents get home today (won't be for a good number of hours).
Anyway, things are pretty bad. Just felt like letting you all know, since most people assume that since we can't handle the snow here (and really, most people can't), that reports have been over-blowing how bad it is. While some of you from the Midwest or Alaska might scoff at 16 inches of snow, know that all it takes to cancel school in western Washington is 2-3 inches. When they get 16 inches in 36 hours, things are bad, simply because it's unusual and the infrastructure is not set up to handle it.
Yup.
