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RSS icon Comments on Wild Weather We're Having

1

.. i just got this from a friend and thought it kind of apropo..
"Let me just say that I had the BEST bike ride home tonight. I knew it was gonna be crazy when I saw the water flooding inside the school district building in the locker room where I changed into my rainy weather gear. I was out in the rain for approximately 23 seconds before I was completely soaked through my "waterproof" jacket. Had a group of guys whoop it up in awe of the fact that I was on a bike.

Riding down Airport Way, half the right lane and sometimes the entire lane was flooded. I went through puddles that covered at least half my tires. When I pedaled, my feet dipped in the water. The cars had to switch lanes, cause their wheels weren't big enough to get through. I was definitely going faster than any cars the entire way home.

Riding up Union, the wind was to my back and I barely had to pedal. As I crested the hill, I saw a bright lightening flash, quickly followed by a clap of thunder and then every light on the block went out. Awesome.

Ride on,
ilsa"

Posted by riz | December 14, 2006 7:31 PM
2

We need mass transit, but I don't see how any system is going to be much of a help if a 9.0 earthquake hits.


If anything, you could make a better argument for cars (and buses) in case of an earthquake, instead of some elevated/below ground transit system.


There are numerous reasons for transit; this isn't one of 'em.

Posted by kb | December 14, 2006 8:01 PM
3


A tunnel would probably be fine in an earthquake.

However, we're not having an earthquake. We're having a rainstorm (more common) and our roads are nearing uselessness.

Posted by duh | December 14, 2006 8:14 PM
4

I wondered why there wasn't any cross-traffic on Mercer when I came down Dexter at around 5:45...

And really, it wasn't THAT bad out there - if you knew which side streets to take, and stayed off the main arterials.

Still, it's just a bizarre coincidence that this crap low-pressure front had to blow through on another Seahawks home game night, which even without the weather would have made the evening commuter traffic extra-specially sucky.

Posted by COMTE | December 14, 2006 8:42 PM
5

W.Marginal was totally flooded, I barely managed to get through. The water was about up to my car door on both sides - probably the deepest I've ever driven through. Lots of stalled cars (and a few trucks) were blocking some of the way too.

That said, mass transit will be freakin useless when there are major power outages, and tracks can break in earthquakes, so spare us the tortured logic and your anti-car agenda, please. Hell, a big ol SUV with a bunch of ground clearance is probably your best post-disaster way to get around next to a good horse (and those appear to be in rather short supply).

OTOH, a small boat would have been useful in spots this evening...

Posted by Mr. X | December 14, 2006 9:03 PM
6

ok so i catch the bus on campus pkwy and there was three feet of water on the south side of the street. while the original post didn't witness the cars getting stuck and guessed that people were caught unaware in a "rush" of water, i can tell you for a fact that the people whose cars stalled out in three feet of water where I was totally drove straight into a fucking LAKE like it wasn't even there. There was a BRAND NEW MERCEDES that plowed into the lake and got half way before the water rushed through the grill and killed the engine. it sat in the middle of the lake for fifteen minutes before a bunch of UW kids decided to push them out. everyone else? they were 4x4ing it through the median like it was demo derby night at the monroe raceway. and after the mercedes was pushed out? MORE PEOPLE DROVE THROUGH THE LAKE. Most made it, but barely. So. I don't know about the shit on mercer, but from what I witnessed I wouldn't be AT ALL SURPRISED if that asshole drove right into it as if the outcome wasn't totally obvious.

Posted by Charles | December 14, 2006 9:08 PM
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Posted by Charles | December 14, 2006 9:45 PM
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If he had taken it slow and steady he'd have probably made it fine (you want to avoid splash up, though once water hits a certain depth it'll kill any car - I even saw some trucks stalled out on W.Marginal). It's actually good that those guys pushed him out - you don't want to sit and idle in traffic in water that deep or you'll stall out too.

Among other locations, SDOT closed southbound SR 99 where the dip occurs north of the Battery Street Tunnel and water usually collects in normal rain - I bet that was a sight.

Our drainage is designed for the long, steady rain we usually get, and oddly enough flat places like LA and Phoenix are equippted to handle this kind of torrential rain somewhat better (if not anything else).

Kinda scary driving, much worse than the last snow if you ask me.


Posted by Mr. X | December 14, 2006 11:20 PM
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Posted by Noink | December 14, 2006 11:48 PM
10

i got stuck on a 43 bus that died after that tree fell on that minivan, because it also took out the bus wires. we all got up and huffed it uphill on 23rd, through flooded sidewalks, hoping to catch a diesel #48 that could drop us on top of the hill. unfortunately, when the #48 finally came, it was at a standstill, stuck in traffic because of the giant downed evergreen. i wound up walking home from 23rd & mercer to 15th and madison, uphill the whole damned way. but luckily the rain and wind had let up by then.

a woman i ran into on 19th and john was hanging out while her golden retriever swam around through the lake-puddles that had formed in the fieldof that school there.

Posted by kim | December 15, 2006 10:38 AM
11

I was on southbound 99 as plan B to get around the lake in the dip at Mercer to ultimately head north on Aurora. I've never seen water get so deep so fast. My little old Accord kept on going though, unlike the BMW stalled out in 3-4 feet of water at the bottom of Mercer. Passed through 5 or 6 new creeks between lower QA and Lake City. The good news is, the U-14 Geckos won a spot in the City Tournament finals, and by 8:00 all the roads were high, if not totally dry, except for Mercer with its floating beemer.

Posted by Turtle not Hare | December 15, 2006 11:08 AM
12

Tortured logic and anti-car agenda, my ass, Comte (you cheese-eating bastard). That wasn't my point at all, although of course one could assume that a "pedestrian" laughing at the sight of thousands of cars stranded in the rain would be anti-car. Fact is, I fucking love driving. I have 75,000 miles on a 3-year old (biodiesel, he types with smug satisfaction) car. I just don't love driving to and from work. I walk, ride my bike, or take the bus (actually the slowest way for me to get to work, which is part of another rant I could craft about the general shittiness of Seattle's transportation network). If one were to read my original comments carefully, one would find, among other things, an expression of my desire for a distributed transportation network in and through Seattle and around Puget Sound. We're already constrained by geography; why make matters worse by pursuing transportation plans that focus so much traffic on major arterials (I-5, SR-99, SR-520, etc.)? Better to DISTRIBUTE the traffic flow as much as possible across the little bit of land we do have, and DISTRIBUTE the ways in which people make their commute so that, in case of bad weather, they have better options to get them to and from work. Right after I posted my pictures and comment, I hopped in the car and drove from Queen Anne to Capital Hill to get some dog food and have a look around. I picked my way along lesser-used streets (as another commenter pointed out, these were often wide-open, and the drive only took me 10 minutes), while I wondered why the hell a city the size of Seattle should have such a difficult time making more efficient use of the streets we already have.

If we're hit by a massive earthquake or a North Korean nuke, sure, we're all fucked, but for a place that gets as much rain as we do, our transportation system is ridiculously inadequate, as yesterday's storm so nicely exposed. Growing up in the Midwest, I was accustomed to massive dumps of rain from perfectly ordinary summer thunderstorms; the highways in poor-ass Indiana (where I’m not from, thank God), for fuck's sake, handle rain more effectively than most of the roadways I've driven out here in Washington State.

The Mercer/Aurora mess (even without rain, it’s a mess) is a perfect example of how NOT to build a distributed and efficient transportation network. Forcing huge traffic volumes to snake around South Lake Union to and from I-5 and downtown or lower Queen Anne, for example, slows the entire grid down and creates unnecessary traffic backups. The one light at 5th and Mercer can back up traffic all the way up 5th, down Broad and Valley and all the way to the I-5 off-ramps. The light at Broad and Denny backs up traffic all the way down Denny to I-5. There just aren’t enough roads and other transit options to move people to and through this town. Better to have as many different ways through and around town as possible, rather than that one major way that everyone has to use, no matter what. Open the street grid across Aurora again; provide better mass transit options to people crossing the lake or heading out to Shoreline, Tukwilla, etc. We’re at least 50 years behind where we ought to be.

Finally, would someone in city government please come up with a way to clean the leaves and needles off the street at the end of the fall, so they don't end up clogging the storm drains? For fuck's sake, people, why is it so hard to get this shit right?

Posted by Pomme Fritz | December 15, 2006 11:49 AM
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Whoa, step away from the keyboard you double-fried slab of low country spud - I didn't make those statements; if you go back up and re-read the comments, you'll see it was Mr. X who berated your beloved mode of transportation.

Sheesh, a little rain and wind drives all the crazies out into the open.

Posted by COMTE | December 15, 2006 12:18 PM
14

I'm so late to this but I might as well throw it in: my experience commuting in this mess was a trip.

And I had to submit a final essay via e-mail thanks to a convoluted process that started at 6 and ended at 9, and so, with the Seahawks game, I left early at 4 hoping to withstand the rush and get it done.

Heh.

I completely agree with Brian's assessment and sadly believe that the city isn't thinking about it at all. This will be forgotten once everything is cleaned up and running again. And then it'll all go to hell again the next time something else happens.

That's what I hate about this city the most. Everyone bickers and bickers, but the city doesn't keep house, maintain its infrastructure, and do what needs to get done.

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