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Sunday, December 17, 2006

Who got power first?

posted by on December 17 at 16:39 PM

The inevitable question has come to our attention: did the slow return of power to blacked-out neighborhoods favor the rich and white over the poor and minorities? It’s hard to tell, since City Light yanked its map schematic of which hoods were illuminated. Our tipsters point to the troublesome clues: the great white North got power back before the South End and the West. And pockets of gentrification down south, like Mt. Baker and Columbia City, got juice back before poorer sections of the Rainier Valley. One possible explanation: infrastructure in poorer neighborhoods has historically been in worse shape. So the lights coming on less quickly in less affluent neighborhoods could be the result of years of neglect—yes, racist neglect— without intentional racism now. We’ll be trying to find some answers on Monday.

RSS icon Comments

1

Wrong--we on poor, Asian Beacon Hill got power way before rich, white Mount Baker did.

Posted by Big Wags | December 17, 2006 4:46 PM
2

Beacon Hill may be Asian (51 percent according to the 2000 census) but it isn't poor. The average household income was about $41,000 in 2000 -- about the same as Columbia City. Compare that to $25,000 in Rainier Beach.

Posted by Angela Valdez | December 17, 2006 5:00 PM
3

Poverty isn't a race so it can't possibly be racism.

Posted by The Baron | December 17, 2006 5:05 PM
4

Um, this is the power company trying to get power back on. If there was any preferential treatment in restoring power, it'd likely be commercial, as they pay about 4x the rates as compared to reisdential.

I doubt this is even the case, and I seriously doubt the power company considers race or class of a neighborhood. It's more likely they're responding to their sensors (or responding to areas phoning in the most complaints, which generally should be equivilent to density) that alert them to outages in the best order they can.

Furthermore, some of the older, more upscale neighborhoods in Seattle can have some of the oldest, most decripite utility infrastructure as well. But as in all of these circumstances, it's the most rural customers that will have to wait longest to get power restored.

Posted by Dougsf | December 17, 2006 5:26 PM
5

interesting topic for discussion.... for what it's worth, i live on queen anne, and on thursday the extent of the "outage" was a brief five second loss. that's it.

Posted by mirror | December 17, 2006 5:30 PM
6

There's probably a good graduate school dissertation (or research project by some foundation) that looks at how electrical system quality tracks gentrification and renewal. Downtown has been burying power lines for decades, and had few (if any) outages from what I can tell. Capitol Hill has seen a lot of construction, and I expect that "touching" the electrical wires to tie new stuff in results in improvements. Utilities typically find it desirable to fix problems when they encounter them, and thus more perturbation might result in more fixes that otherwise would have resulted in problems.

Trees falling affect the just and unjust alike, however.

Posted by Glenn Fleishman | December 17, 2006 5:38 PM
7

I live in South Seattle near white center. I got power one day after the storm. On the other hand, I know people way out north/east who still don't have power.

Maybe I'm overreacting, but until we get the numbers in, isn't this guessing a little bit like the Seattle PI headline blaming the crane operator for drug use before any investigation?

Posted by southside | December 17, 2006 5:39 PM
8

I live in the CD and the worst we encountered was a seven hour internet outage. I was forced to turn to my ClearWire modem, horror of horrors. Kirkland, Bellevue, and other Eastside enclaves are much more prosperous than where I live, so I have a feeling it's not due to race of poverty. I think it's much more likely that we kept our power because we're four blocks away from a substation.

Posted by Gitai | December 17, 2006 5:45 PM
9

I can't say what the power company is like in Seattle. But, in NYC Con Edison definitely took longer to put power back up in Wash Heights and other low-income, high-minority population areas than in high-income, low-minority population areas. Same can be said for PG&E in the Bay Area. Perhaps Seattle is different. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Posted by Papayas | December 17, 2006 5:53 PM
10

I'm with you, in this country one should always assume racism / classicism until proven otherwise. However, as someone who grew up in the heart of the CD, I'd say its a misnomer to describe Mt. Baker as "gentrified." The CD is gentrified; Mt. Baker has always been wealthy / white / elitist.

Posted by rambo | December 17, 2006 5:54 PM
11

Both PSE and Seattle Light have done an especially lame job of letting us know about which areas are still powerless. I'm not even talking about "when will the power be on" because I understand that's difficult to predict. But they can at least say "Shoreline north of such and such has power...."

Important because a lot of folks left home for friends, hotels, relatives, etc. It's amazing for all the talk about wonders of Web 2.0 that no one could use all the tehhnology for something truly important and useful.

Posted by mrobvious | December 17, 2006 6:12 PM
12

i'm going add to this retarded blog post that playing the race card, before having any idea what your talking about is a sign of your own racism.

And putting an accusation into the form of a question doesn't make it any less of an accusation.

Is the power grid racist?

And like someone said above, poor is not a fucking race.

Posted by seattle98104 | December 17, 2006 6:23 PM
13

@ mrobvious

yeah, let me just AJAX up the power grid it'll do wonders for the infrastructure.

Posted by seattle98104 | December 17, 2006 6:25 PM
14

Um, I'm one to call anti-South-side racism as quickly as the next person, but isn't most of the Eastside still without power too?

Posted by Gomez | December 17, 2006 6:32 PM
15

Ah... you're talking about City Light so I guess the Eastside is exempt from this discussion.

That said, this isn't news. The clear discrimination against the South Side has been a fact of life for many city agencies for quite a while.

Posted by Gomez | December 17, 2006 6:33 PM
16

This is so stupid. Shame on you.

Posted by Always Assume Racism | December 17, 2006 6:36 PM
17

Angela Valdez, you've been outed! Now we all know who writes the "Ask an Uptight Seattleite" column for the Weekly. Hey, you're double-dipping!

Posted by Dawn Davenport | December 17, 2006 6:59 PM
18

News from the dark, powerless neighborhoods...

In my neighborhood, the people with the most Christmas decorations got their lights back first, except that the subset of that group with LED-lit manger scenes never lost it. Next were folks with electric menorahs in the windows, then those with Budweiser signs (but restoration came to those with both a Budweiser AND a Coors sign before it came to those with menorahs); after that, subscribers to the Seattle Times, Volvo drivers, and fans of hydroplane racing received power at 6-hr intervals. Everyone else's house is still cold.

Posted by rodrigo | December 17, 2006 7:09 PM
19

There's a rumor that City Light is sending used electrons to neighborhoods far south of the Ship Canal. I hate to think that little children are down here reading Bible stories thanks to electrons that minutes before were running through the sex toys of realtors in Laurelhurst.

Posted by rodrigo | December 17, 2006 7:23 PM
20

Oh my god, this is so stupid. I just got my power back on Queen Anne last night, friends in the central district only lost theirs for an hour, and my extremely rich parents in Tacoma are still warming themselves by the fire tonight (not that Tacoma City Light has anything to do with Seattle, but I guess you could assume that Seattle City Light is probably more progressive and therefore "less 'racist'" than TCL.

There's real, subtle, harmful racism and classism occurring every day and it needs to be talked about. No one's going to listen to you, though, when you're renowned for knee-jerking your way through any issue that could potentially involve race. I really like your writing, Angela, and am hoping that Dan put you up to this. And to the person who said this is awful similar to the PI smearing that crane operator for his prior drug problems: PRECISELY.

Posted by concerned reader | December 17, 2006 7:53 PM
21

And yes, har har, there are one or two affluent neighborhoods in Tacoma.

Posted by concerned reader | December 17, 2006 7:55 PM
22

Sigh.

Well, there's a reason why Seattle City Light pulled the map. If that reason is something other than an attempt to quell criticism about which areas they first targeted for restoration, I'd like to hear it. In any case, I'm confident in the Stranger's reporters' abilities to get the data and match it up with economic/racial data.

It is telling what they left on the Seattle City Light site, though. Firstly, a list on how they prioritize areas to restore, and secondly, a list of neighborhoods without power that they targeted for information leaflets on Sunday. All these neighborhoods are in South Seattle, which means 1) yay, the South side is getting attention and 2), apparently, these are the only large areas left without power.

Posted by Joshua H | December 17, 2006 8:45 PM
23

I’m not sure you were here in 1993, but most of the north end was without power for 3-4 days after the inauguration day storm--in some places even longer. I suppose that was just because we had a black mayor back then, it didn’t have anything to do with the 75 mph winds, smashed trees, shattered transformers, downed power lines, sewer backups, or flooding. Oh no. He was just looking for ways to get whitey.

Posted by Whitey | December 17, 2006 8:47 PM
24

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

I live and work about three blocks from the S-danger.

NO power outage at all - does that mean this is a really key, rich people neighborhood?

Few trees, Angela, no feeder line problems.

This is the new writer chewing on this fabricated bone. Does not bode well for her journalistic skills.

Remember City Light is an old commie hotbed, socialist Public Power scheme from way back

Had Dan been around then - he most certainly would have opposed that socialist abnormality - or something like that.

Trees, trees folks, and where the feeder lines are at. And Angela, get a clue where the stories at at.

Last i heard is Mercer Island and Media still have no power. Trees.

Posted by sam | December 17, 2006 8:55 PM
25

Seattleites have long wanted to believe that, oh no, nothing in their city is ever racist, it's never a problem here, it just happens somewhere else, so how dare you even suggest it?

Yet we know racism is as deeply embedded here as anywhere else. Probably the only difference between Seattle and the rest of the country is there's more denial here; what is obvious to everyone else (power companies are slow to turn on power in blacked out poorer and nonwhite neighborhoods as we saw in Queens and St Louis recently) is denied here.

I saw the same map. And had the same reaction. Maybe there's a non-racist explanation, maybe there isn't. But to deny it out of hand is as foolish as accepting it on assumption alone.

Posted by eugene | December 17, 2006 9:12 PM
26

I'm in Mt. Baker and not excited to go home again to a dark house. Presently I'm nursing chamomile tea at an internet cafe.
By the way, did I correctly read the journalist name in the Danielson Music movie at NWFilm Forum? Angela Valdez?

Posted by derek | December 17, 2006 9:43 PM
27

Many of you are idiots. A few points:

1. What is going on in the Eastside is irrelevant because they are served by Puget Sound Energy, a private corporation. Seattle City Light is operated by the City of Seattle, and it serves Seattle plus several suburbs: Shoreline, Burien, LFP, Tukwila, Seatac, North Highline, and Normandy Park.

2. It also doesn't matter if you say "I live in Central and I didn't lose power" because City Light has no control over where power is lost and where it isn't. What City Light does control is how quickly it responds to outages that do happen.

3. What we do know is that all (or practically all) of Seattle north of the Ship Canal has power restored, and that the North End is more affluent than the South End. We also know that the vast majority of outages that remain in City Light's coverage area are on the South Side: West Seattle, the Rainier Valley, South Park, Tukwila, and Burien (where I live). Those are poor areas with some wealthy enclaves--and City Light's response time there has been DRAMATICALLY slower than it was in places like Lake City, Wedgwood, and Green Lake. Is that a coincidence? Maybe. But it is ABSOLUTELY critical, especially to those of us still shivering without power on the South Side, that an investigation eventually determine whether classism had anything to do with City Light's prioritization of wealthy neighborhoods over poor ones.

Meanwhile, we settle in to face our 4th night in a row freezing our asses off without power.

Posted by lorax | December 17, 2006 10:00 PM
28

i'm sorry, burien is poor compared to what? white center? oh wait.. white center has there power back, must be a haven for the rich.

investigation? sure, but crying racism? bull. shit.

Posted by seattle98104 | December 17, 2006 10:13 PM
29

You now have a 3-way tie with Erica C. Barnett and Dan Savage as the biggest drama queens in Seattle

Posted by Congratulations Angela | December 17, 2006 10:16 PM
30

Well, the richer neighborhoods always have their power lines buried... so, yes, there is the possibility of "racist neglect" (by the way - most people read this posting completely wrong - it's not about how fast power was restored -it's about the maintenance/infrastructure that made systems vulnerable to outages...

Anyway- it's a good question to raise Angela!

Posted by Aaaa | December 17, 2006 10:26 PM
31

Ahex, lorax... part of the premise of Angela's post is that south siders getting left without power implies that those being left in the dark are only poor people... when clearly the thousands of affluent eastsiders without power to this moment would have something to say to that.

Posted by Gomez | December 17, 2006 10:46 PM
32

Lorax, my geography matters because I'm near a substation. If my power had gone out, being four blocks away from that substation would have prioritized my area for repair, and indeed I do live in the CD. My point is that the geography of the power distribution system in Seattle is a better explanation for where power is and is not back than some grinning klansman in Seattle City Light saying, "Quickly, my minions! Gather our neo-Nazi allies and restore power based on the racial composition of the neighborhood! Make 'white power' a literal rallying cry!"

So, fine, yes, please, let's look for correlations between racial composition and speed of restoration, and then let's also see how those figures match up with distance to substations, transformers, and the severity of the damage. And hey, if the severity of the damage matches up with racial composition, you can start screaming at nature for racial discrimination for knocking over more trees in predominantly black neighborhoods and accuse Mayor Nickels of promoting future power outages among minorities with his Greening Seattle program. I'm sure that should be the first priority for those who want to promote racial equality in Seattle. "Well, our public schools still suck, blacks still suffer disproportionately from the drug war, and economic opportunities for blacks still lag behind those for whites, but dammit, we've ensured that once a decade when we have a major windstorm, Seattle City Light will disregard efficacy and pesky technical details in order to avoid the appearance of racial bias."

Posted by Gitai | December 17, 2006 10:46 PM
33

i called every few hours from thursday through saturday night for updates, and can attest that seattle city light admitted openly that "the distribution lines serving the south have sustained more damage." so that's their story.

Posted by jessiesk | December 17, 2006 10:57 PM
34

The real story is that there was an obvious push to restore power to the shopping centers first (I happened to be in downtown Bellevue on Friday night just as the lights came back on across the downtown complex, and it was surreal to drive back north through darkness on 405 until you reached islands of light that seemed to correspond with major retail complexes like Alderwood Mall). There also seems to have been some price-gouging on gasoline as the weekend ended with prices up by 5 cents on the Eastside in the few stations that were actually open for business.

I don't think the tree limbs are racist however, and the very worst of the damage I saw this weekend seemed to be in the Woodinville, Duvall, Snohomish and Redmond areas. I'll be frankly amazed if PSE can restore power to the homes along the Woodinville-Duvall Road before the end of the year. And by homes, I mean the homes that weren't flattened by the forest that fell over.

Posted by Peter | December 17, 2006 11:12 PM
35

But wait! Seattle City Light has been an industry leader in hiring women and minorities for jobs that were previously always held by white guys since the 70's.

AND the people of Leschi STILL don't have any power. AND their lines are buried. AND they quite frequently have problems with blackouts in the neighborhood.

Yet we, in the working class, largely minority, Beacon Hill, have electricity, and have had it since 4pm on Friday!

CLEARLY THIS IS REVERSE RACISM: THE SEATTLE CITY LIGHT MINORITY-CONTROLLED WORK CREWS ARE "TAKING CARE OF THEIR OWN" FIRST!!!!!

I call for a national strike and a day of protest against racism.

Posted by It's Self Evident | December 17, 2006 11:27 PM
36

I sent a text to my rich white friends in Alki and Madison Park (both households still without power) to inform them that The Stranger thinks they may be victims of racist neglect.

"Power to the people!" replied one pal who has miraculousy held on to his sense of humor in the face of such hurtful oppression.

Posted by send in al sharpton (with some batteries) | December 17, 2006 11:30 PM
37

I always new trees had it in for the poor folk and minorities. But I never would have expected them to coordinate such an effective attack with the winds and the Ku Klux City Light.

Clever, trees. Clever.

Posted by seattle98104 | December 17, 2006 11:37 PM
38

My gut told me the night the power went out that my ass would be cold longer because I live in the South, be it White Center/West Seattle. When I huddled by the radio late Saturday night, listening to Seattle City Light’s reports that the North side of town had most of their power restored and the focus was now on getting the South out of the dark, my boyfriend asked me how my gut knew the deal. I told him that people are painfully predictable, and not unlike how a majority of people always go to the right when they enter a theater, all I was assuming that night was that City Light would look at that blinking map of red outages and go right. Moreover, right usually also means white. In almost every city I have ever visited or lived in, the North side is always the white side. If you call bullshit on this argument, fine. However, I say its worth looking into, story wise.

By the way, I now have a deep-rooted love affair with electricity. How I took you for granted, electric power!

Posted by iheartelectricity | December 17, 2006 11:52 PM
39

Let me throw you some alternatives to the bloviation.

1. North Ballard, Crown Hill, Broadview, and large sections of Greenwood and Bitter Lake didn't lose power. That's what, 40% of the real estate north of the Canal?

2. Not as many big trees up here to knock down the wires. Ballard is pretty well denuded. Much of this part of town was logged a century ago. The largest trees I know of in my neighborhood are in Evergreen-Washelli, where there are exactly zero power lines.

3. So, the problems up here were less complex. It apparently was mostly feeders having trouble. Once the feeders were fixed, the North had power.

It does seem odd that the Valley and West Seattle are still in the dark, but keep this in mind, too: North Seattle is represented on the City Council by exactly ONE person (Steinbrueck, who lives in Jackson Park), despite having nearly half of the residential population of the city.

Posted by dw | December 18, 2006 12:02 AM
40


So, "What we do know is that all (or practically all) of Seattle north of the Ship Canal has power restored". How do we know this is true? The 6-way intersection at 50th and Greenlake Way is still out and people I know in Wallingford are still without power as of this afternoon.

While it's an interesting point to bring up ("Are our distribution of city services based on institutionalized racism?") it would be better to have some basic facts by which to start the discussion rather than "Our tipsters point to troublesome clues..." Tipsters? What about numbers? Right now, everyone is assuming the other guy has power and they don't. Where's the reporting? Our is City Light not revealing the facts?

Posted by facts, please | December 18, 2006 12:39 AM
41

To those who suspect racism/classism is afoot here: Just how do you imagine this occurs? Do you imagine that the manager heading up this effort is some closet KKK member who rubs his hands, says "mwahahaha," and compares a census demographic map to the outage map before prioritizing repairs? Doesn't that seem a bit far-fetched?

Suppose city light prioritizes based on time and volume of customer reports. Suppose that rich people call sooner and more often than poor people. Suppose white people are more likely to be rich. Supose these facts conspire to get power to rich, white customers restored faster. Does that make city light classist and racist?

If you think so, what remedy do you propose? Should customers be asked for their income and reports be weighted in inverse proprotion to the answer?

Posted by David Wright | December 18, 2006 2:07 AM
42


FWIW The part Magnolia that I live in (in a very run-down rental haus) never lost power, but upper crust higher up the hill (& apparently most of Magnolia) didn't have power through Saturday night.
Maybe in this case it was better to live near the industrial area! ;)

Posted by K X One | December 18, 2006 5:45 AM
43


Forgot to add, I work in Madison Valley and we are still on emergency generator power. We have had city juice only at partial strength and intermittently at that. Just to the east of us, where the really pricey property is was pitch black until Sunday, and parts of it still appear to be...

Posted by K X One | December 18, 2006 5:50 AM
44

It's not racism. It's anti-Christianity. My sources tell me that Christians are being denied power longer than non-Christians.

And btw - the reason why City Light "yanked" the diagram from the web is because the formation of the areas that were without power resembled an aborted fetus. It was a message for all of us, but the Christian haters at City Light removed it.

Posted by Won't somebody please think about the Christians? | December 18, 2006 7:37 AM
45

IMO, City light has been working their asses off trying to clean up after this incredibly powerful storm.

I don't care if they put my neighborhood lower on some imagined racist priority list. All I care about is getting it all fixed, which is what they are working toward.

Quit your bitching, get a broom, and clean up the street in front of your hovel.

You'll acomplish a lot more doing that than trying to stir up some divisive and meaningless hate energy.

Posted by old timer | December 18, 2006 8:05 AM
46

The power grid runs north to south. I'd expect a real reporter to know that, but asking the Stranger to hire real reporters would be racist.

Posted by Jeff | December 18, 2006 10:16 AM
47

Those god damned homos have all the inside power and the folks at City Light are very queer and partial to the gay agenda.

Why do I know this? C. Hill only blinked.

Oh, there are no trees like in the South End. Well, maybe it is not the homo network, just wind and nature and TREES, TREES, TREES.

Of course, such a simple observation is far less like "yellow journalism" and seeing racism in every corner, and in every situation.

Posted by aubrey | December 18, 2006 11:36 AM
48

Fremont won in the power games - we had power and cable in downtown Fremont all the time. Probably because we have so many Internet firms here, few large trees, and are sheltered from most winds in our valley.

And we're multi-ethnic and multi-national, so it ain't a race thing ... heck, half the homeowners on my block weren't even born in the US and many aren't citizens.

Posted by Will in Seattle | December 18, 2006 12:19 PM
49

My theory is that Angela was hoping this story's facts would pan out for an article titled something to the tune of:

WHITE POWER - How Seattle City Lights Keeps Minorities in the Dark

...a headline she's probably been sitting on for days. If I'm wrong, you can have that one for next year. I mean, there's like multiple puns happening there. Journalist like those, right?

Posted by Dougsf | December 18, 2006 12:36 PM
50

Generally, the way it works is power companies prioritize the problems that affect the most people. If your local grid is fine and your power is out because of a feeder line that serves 50,000 people, your power will come on pretty quickly. If only your block is out and everywhere around you has power, you'll be waiting a while.

Posted by Orv | December 18, 2006 12:53 PM
51

Ok. Hold on. I said, we have no way to tell. I also suggested that this might have something to do with neglect and infrastructure. I never accused the light company of deliberately keep minorities in the dark. I think it's a worthwhile question to ask -- not a foregone conclusion.

Posted by Angela Valdez | December 18, 2006 1:28 PM
52

Um, you said "It’s hard to tell...We’ll be trying to find some answers on Monday."

It's Monday and you are flip-flopping to there is "no way to tell", and are giving us very few answers.

I would also like to see data on this comment:

"infrastructure in poorer neighborhoods has historically been in worse shape"

Is this an assumption?

Posted by You Hold On | December 18, 2006 2:44 PM
53

Ok. Hold on. I said, we have no way to tell.

And yet...

Our tipsters point to the troublesome clues: the great white North got power back before the South End and the West.

Correlation != causation.

One possible explanation: infrastructure in poorer neighborhoods has historically been in worse shape.

In theory. What about the reality?

So the lights coming on less quickly in less affluent neighborhoods could be the result of years of neglect—yes, racist neglect— without intentional racism now.

Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Given that the state of the power supply was better north of the Canal, therefore it must be racist neglect.

Oh, but there's no way to tell. Geez, Tony Snow, you want to blow my mind with still more torus-shaped logic?

At the least, idiotic. At the most, inflammatory race-baiting that obfuscates the real problems of racism -- and the power grid -- in this city.

Posted by dw | December 18, 2006 2:57 PM
54

amen.

Posted by seattle98104 | December 18, 2006 5:40 PM
55

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003482939_stormpower18m.html

In Seattle, scattered outages persisted in South Park, Madrona, Leschi, Rainier Valley and West Seattle near Lincoln Park, Seattle City Light spokeswoman Suzanne Hartman said, as well as in suburban Normandy Park, Burien, Skyway, and Tukwila. Power was largely restored to North Seattle.

I'm sure it's a coincidence that these are mostly poor areas! God forbid we raise these questions! I know a white person in a rich area who doesn't have power! Therefore, everyone here should shut up! If the power infrastructure is in disrepair in these areas, it's probably because the poor people there did a bad job maintaining it!

DON'T TALK ABOUT RACE OR CLASS IN SEATTLE! SEATTLE IS PERFECT!

Posted by lorax | December 18, 2006 8:32 PM
56

Pull the City Light workers off their 17-hour shifts for emergency sensitivity training!

Posted by Explorer | December 18, 2006 8:54 PM
57

Lorax - you need to get out of the house a bit more.

West Seattle is poor and black? Leshi, Burien --- all the areas you mention are very mixed, moving upscale and relative to power poles, just like the north end.

Wind, water soaked ground, old trees - and guess what? Downed power lines to excess. Crises level in many areas, Mercer Island, Media, Auburn, other Eastside hoods.

Talking about race and class is very important, but this attempt is stupid, vain and silly. In fact, Ms. Angela Valdez makes light of a serious question by reducing it to air headed frivolity.

By the way, I am black and gay, and have lived in at least a dozen Seattle neighborhoods. My whole life.

Posted by Sammy | December 18, 2006 9:10 PM
58

omg west seattle near LICOLN PARK is a poor area?? omg get your head checked.

Posted by seattle98104 | December 18, 2006 10:02 PM
59

1. The last places in South Seattle to get power(late last night) were those closest to the lake(the wealthiest, whitest parts). Areas closer to Rainier Avenue and the feeder lines(the poorest, less white) received power days earlier.

2. An earlier poster said that Mt. Baker was always rich and white, never gentrified is wrong, they must have been born or moved after 1980 when the gentrification began. In the mid sixties real estate agencies "block busted" that neighborhood: moved one black family in and then sold most of the white owned houses in a panic to more black families. Those black families were relatively wealthy(many public school teachers and administrators)and the neighborhood ended up more integrated than perhaps any in the nation. Despite that, the neighborhood was declared blighted and it was extremely difficult to get a mortgage or home insurance, buyers had to pay extra fees and higher premiums. Starting in the mid-eighties Mt. Baker gentrified back into its current nearly all white state. Most of those black families(a few still live there) did quite well, by selling their homes from 500K to over a million directly to next family. Many families in the CD sold their houses too soon and too cheaply to real estate agents without putting the house on the market and did not get the high return when those houses were later resold to white families.

Posted by anne | December 19, 2006 10:22 AM
60

This is a completely irresponsible post, Angela.


It's Tuesday and I still have no power on 18th St. in Capitol Hill.


You know why? Not because of racism, but because we are a small 1/2 block outage. Let them fix the critical outages first (hospitals, fire depts, etc.), the largest outages second and let the rest of us wait.

Posted by White w/o Power | December 19, 2006 11:35 AM
61

still waiting for that monday special report on the racist city light.

where the hell is it angela?

Posted by seattle98104 | December 19, 2006 2:43 PM
62
Posted by Orv | December 19, 2006 2:56 PM
63

"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.

Posted by George | December 21, 2006 1:32 PM

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