Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Storm

Seattle got hit by a winter storm last night. Snow, cold in the single digits, the whole catastrophe. A plane slid off the runway at SeaTac. A bus overturned. Traffic on I-5 was gridlocked, in places throughout the night. People stuck downtown abandoned their cars and sought hotel rooms. It took Jack four hours to drive home from work, and then he could not get his car up Queen Anne Hill and had to leave it at the bottom and walk up.

A hard winter was forecast for Seattle, due to La Nina, but nobody expected it to start so soon. The mayor purchased road salt and created a Winter Snow Plan, but now it seems the city will run out of salt, money, and patience long before the winter is done. Especially since, technically, it hasn't even started yet.

I grew up in Buffalo (where it currently is 59 degrees!) I'm more or less used to this. But not HERE.

3 comments:

ed124c said...

Condolences from Rochester, where it is also about 59.

If you haven't purchsed a house yet...

TheOFloinn said...

You call that cold? Why, in Colorado one year it was so cold that the words froze coming out of our mouths. Had to wait for spring to find out what we said. And the snow? Why, it was so deep that I came on a guy up to his neck in snow. I commiserated with him, but he said I should save my sympathy for the horse he was on.

Mary Robinette Kowal said...

The morning I flew out, I couldn't get my car to start and poor Leslie had to come fetch me and take me to the airport and quarter to early.