It can easily be said for us Pacific Northwesterners that the weather lately has been anything but boring. Over the past six weeks we have been able to personally witness many of the items that Mother Nature has in her arsenal. 
We have suffered through floods, torrential rain (we even shattered our all-time-ever rain record for the amount of rain received in one month!), thunderstorms, lightning storms (check out this amazing photo), hail, snow, freezing rain and ice. A few funnel clouds were even spotted in our area in November. I guess the wind was feeling rather left out, though, because on Thursday evening/Friday morning it came whipping through our region with extreme power and gusto. Some of the mountain passes reported wind gusts of over 135 MPH. Down in our lowlands our gusts nearly reached 70 MPH! Because of all of this rain and wind (in one hour we had an inch of rain furiously fall), we had some of our floating bridges shut down, parts of the freeway close and several flights were delayed and/or cancelled at our airport. Of course we lost power, but I am extremely grateful that it was only out for 11 hours. When it finally came back on I felt like singing the Hallelujah Chorus. I wish I could have gone out and found the hardworking and remarkably dedicated work crews that were able to restore our power. I wanted to wrap them up in a big huge bear hug and tell them thanks from the bottom of my heart. I am sure a big, steaming cup of hot cocoa and some yummy treats would also have been welcomed, but I didn’t think their bosses would appreciate me interrupting their work when they still had nearly 1,000,000 people in the area without power. I also didn’t know exactly where to find them. But if they happen to stumble across this blog, I want them to know how incredibly grateful we are for their presence in our life. Thank you to all the utility work crews out there!
And to all those who still don’t have power and to all those who have suffered great losses during all of this crazy weather lately, my heart goes out to you. I will definitely be remembering you in my prayers.
And Mother Nature, please don’t go and get any wise ideas and start thinking we are interested in experiencing any sandstorms. I will pass for now!
3 Comments
December 16, 2006 at 2:56 PM
I love the electrical crews, too. I can’t believe how many things are electric that we take for granted all day every day! While our power was out, JuJu and I had many discussions on why our lights, heat, garage door, microwave, etc didn’t work. Then she asked me, “what DOES work, mommy?” So we listed all the things we could think of. Our toilet and water (hallelujah for that!!), our car, our bodies, the doors, and our bunsen burner (I fed my two sweeties 4 respectably healthy meals using my little bunsen burner! Thanks to John and Amy for the Smore Maker we used as a bunsen burner–It rocks!). We actually had a fun time “camping.” Not that I want to repeat the experience any time soon! (I don’t think my lacrimal glands can take that much crying for a while)
December 19, 2006 at 8:06 PM
Crazy! I can’t believe how crazy your weather has been! It’s been like springtime here, like we skipped winter! Could we be so lucky???
December 20, 2006 at 8:40 PM
I feel so bad for you. I hope you guys are surviving. I have a friend in Tacoma, who was without power for 3 days, and living out of an RV.
I do not envy you at all. We have had 20 degrees here, and E is learning about how to dress for the weather, rather than wearing short sleeves and shorts to go outside and play.