News Eastside Refugees seek 4-star shelter
posted by on December 17 at 9:46 AM
It’s been three days since roughly one million families in the Eastside and greater Seattle area lost power at approximately 10 pm Thursday night during the worst storm in a decade. Passing up a rare chance to camp out at Qwest Field, whole neighborhoods have instead migrated to upscale, downtown hotels for the weekend.
If you’re going to be a refugee, I can think of worst places,” says Lakewood resident and current refugee Pat McVee of the Sheraton room he shares with his wife. “It’s like a rich man’s Superdome.”
McVee takes another bite of his BLT, while his wife dips into an artichoke-cheese spread the approximate size of her face.
“It’s hard to compare ourselves to people that are really in dire straits,” McVee says.
This is true. Most refugees don’t have the luxury of driving their SUVs to the nearest Sheraton or Westin hotel for a weekend getaway.
Several blocks away a handful of well bred dogs on designer leashes are being patiently walked around the lobby of the Westin hotel while two rival packs of neighborhood children play a screamier, more elaborate version of tag. The bar is full. The lobby is full. The restaurant is closed (“Get out,” one exhausted waiter tells me, “please” he adds.) There are no available seats left except on the floor.
“At least two other families in our neighborhood ended up here,” says refugee Richard Eastern of Bellevue. He and his wife, along with their three young children have been staying at the Westin since Friday.
“We just want to go home,” Eastern tells me, “the quarters are really cramped here; the hotel is packed. It’s really easy to take your house for granted until you don’t have it anymore.”
But going home presents it’s own challenges; their children are afraid of the house post-storm.
“My oldest son is afraid to sleep in his room,” Eastern says, “you look out his window and all you can see is a tree pressing against the pane.”
“A tree branch speared through my bedroom,” another young neighborhood girl, Emma, pipes up. “I wasn’t there but my brother and dad were.”
“It looks like our children are going to be sleeping with us for a little longer,” Eastern sighs.
Down the street at the Hotel Andra, front desk agent Jennifer Prytz takes a much needed break. It’s 11 pm at night, her lobby is finally empty even though the hotel restaurant, Lola, is still crowded and cooking.
“Usually we’re at 50% capacity this time of year,” she tells me. “We’ve been at 100% capacity the last two days. There have been nonstop phone calls from more families asking about rooms, and we can’t even recommend places to go—everything’s packed. Whole neighborhoods have been relocated to our hotel.”
It is not clear when power will be restored to all neighborhoods. Repeated calls to Puget Sound Energy were met with automated responses:
“If you reached this recording, we are experiencing a high volume of calls…” and “Currently, we are experiencing longer than normal wait times to speak with a customer service agent…” and finally “As of daybreak Sunday, Puget Sound Energy has restored power to 400,000 customers.”
PSE is working on an automated progress report system, which should be available by Sunday afternoon.
For updates, call: 425-452-1234
Our house is full of refugees, and we're doing pretty well - blitz spirit and all that. We've had a few people stop over to use warm water for showers.
Being without money for a hotel or people in powered areas you can stay with must suck utterly.
But oddly, there are only 2 unofficial shelters open on the eastside, both in bellevue. We just got power back at my place in Kirkland last night. It was 42 inside, so we've been staying with generous friends in Seattle. If we were still dead this morning, we were hoping to hit one of the shelters. I guess people have been using hotels, instead.
Seattle Public Light are listing a few more shelters.
Nothing can make me hate these people more than the comment, "It's like a rich person's Superdome."
I was waiting for this.
“We just want to go home,” Eastern tells me, “the quarters are really cramped here; the hotel is packed. It’s really easy to take your house for granted until you don’t have it anymore.”
Cry me a river. You're rich enough to afford the Sheraton. I don't really care if staying there puts you in any sort of discomfort.
Whatever, at least they're sorting it out amongst themselves and injecting some money into the hopitality industry while their at it.
My self-righteous-bullshit-detector just exploded!
I love the snobby comments about the horrible rich eastsiders people from a bunch of Seattle yuppies living in Ballard, Wallingford, Fremont, Queen Anne, etc.
Trust me, if those parts of Seattle were without power we would have seen the same mass exodus to downtown hotels. Let's stop pretending that a neighborhood where a starter home is $400K is anything but rich, no matter what side of the lake it's on.
Oh, whatever, like half of us can even afford Motel 6. I'd wrap up in blankets and wait for the power to come back.
That said, I understand how fortunate I am to live in a neighborhood with strong enough infrastructure that the power rarely goes out.
Oh, whatever, like half of us can even afford Motel 6.
Your parents, who you live with, most likely could.
Nice try, dumbass. My parents live in Las Vegas.
They're staying in our hotels and probably shopping in our shops, too — say hello to the tax dollars.
They're staying in our hotels and probably shopping in our shops, too — say hello to the tax dollars.
This post seems really strange in its tone. It's as if there's some assumption that all the people on the Eastside are rich, Beverly Hills snobs with little dogs and idle hands. The Eastside is horrible in innumerable ways, but it's not all wealthy, not even close. (By the way, the average income in that chi-chi suburb Lakewood is $36,000. Seattle is around $72,000.) The key difference is that most Eastsiders own their own homes. That might make them middle class, but not "rich". (Medina, Clyde Hill, rich? Yes. Factoria? Juanita? Duvall? Totem Lake? Eastgate? Not by Seattle standards.)
Secondly, did Qwest Field really offer to be a shelter? I didn't hear that they did. I wouldn't call having to stay in a hotel as result of massive flooding as a "weekend getaway". Just because they're staying in a hotel, doesn't mean they can necessarily afford it.
Lastly: "well bred dogs on designer leashes". Did you know for sure they were "designer"? Did you ask the dog-owners about the breeding of their dogs? Glib lines like this drive me insane.
From the tone of this article (and especially the tone of the comments), people whose homes are either uninhabitable or too cold for sleeping in (it's 32 degrees right now) shouldn't be staying at a hotel. They should burden any friends or relatives (if they have them) with their families (and pets), sleep on the street, or stay in a freezing house that has no electricity (and probably not enough blankets). Otherwise, they're insufferable, rich, and horrible people. That's nuts.
Yes, Eastsiders can be myopic and insufferable, but they shouldn't made out as villians for staying in a hotel during a natural disaster.
I think the worst assumption is that either the Westin or Sheraton are "upscale". The Westin has been reduced to the level of a really nice Holiday Inn, and the Sheraton is just a dump. No amount of icing can help that turd.
This post lost all its credibility when the first "Eastside refugee" it quotes is from that upscale bastion of the rich, Lakewood.
Smarmy, cheap shots from Seattle hipster wannabes gets old real fast.
I'm thinking this is a spoof - not a great one, since hardly anybody realized it.
We spent a night at a hotel, and felt pretty damn lucky that we were able to do it - last night we were back home, with the temperature 39 degrees (in the house). God only knows when our (non-rich) part of Bellevue is going to see any power. Fortunately, we have no trees through our roof, so we can't complain!
I thought this post was hilarious. Thank you, Cienna, for yet another example of your wit and humor.
"Knee-Jerk Liberal Reaction"? No, it doesn't make any difference how hard you try; you can't blame the slow recovery from the storm and the power outage on the conservative fat-cats. This is a liberal Washington State problem; you are on your own. It is ironic that the only hope you have is the redneck, male, chauvinist, conservative pig in rubber boots who is busting his hind-sides to restore power to the city that is full of whining rich liberals (with "Impeach Bush" bumper stickers on their SUVs and Volvos) huddling around scented candles… So why shouldn't Bush blink? Not even the sooo coveted Global Warming will help you in your cold, dark and lonely nights.
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