>What a saga! I'm glad you are all safe and sound.

Thanks!

There have been recent snow stories in the Pacific northwest that have turned out worse

Yes, that was a sad story, the Kim family getting stranded in Oregon. Also, the climbers on Mt. Hood ... another sad story. All, unfortunately, were unprepared for bad weather ... something one really needs to take into account at this time of year.

~~Bonnie



>
>That one with the family getting stranded in a blizzard and the dad dying while looking for help, for instance. There are always sad stories in the news, they're not hard to find, but something about this one touched me. Some have said the dad -- James Kim, he had a name -- was negligent in getting them into that situation in the first place. To me the story is he and his wife did everything they could to keep the family alive for A WEEK in those conditions. Rationing what little food they had, eating snow for water, burning the tires of the car for warmth. Imagine that cozy little scene. Finally he set out for help and perished doing so. After his body was found -- his wife and their daughters were rescued, as I know you know but others may not -- one of the rescue officers said he was amazed Kim managed to make it 10 miles in those conditions. (In sneakers, one of the news stories said). This was love.
>
>
>>We flew into Seattle airport on Friday afternoon. What a zoo! Parts of the airport had been without power (as much of the Seattle area was *still* without power), flights were delayed or canceled. We had one more plane to catch a few hours later, the little puddle-jumper from Sea-Tac to Yakima. While we waited, our co-worker back home was emailing us with horror stories about the wind and snow over on our side of the mountains (wind on both sides, rain on the Seattle side, snow on the other side). We had been gone most of the week. Apparently power was out in much of the Kittitas valley where we lived. (We called our home phone and got our answering machine ... so we knew that we had power, although when we finally got home we discovered blinking clocks all over the house so it had gone out at some point during the storm).
>>
>>Anyway, we're in the puddle-jumper, on the taxi-way and the pilot comes on the PA and says that the tower has had another power outage and we may have to sit for awhile. No problem, 5 minutes later we head out. We find out later the next day that the tower power outage had subsequently caused the airport to shut down for hours. Apparently they decided to let the planes that were already away from their gates to go ahead and fly out ... so we got out *just* in time.
>>
>>Then once we got to Yakima (which had no snow and the sky was clear), we couldn't take the normal route home because I-82 between Yakima and Ellensburg was closed (heard later that there were cars off the road all over the place up in those hills), so we had to take the slower canyon road home (and it was snowing). Whew! What an ordeal.
>>
>>But wait! There's more!
>>
>>The next day, Saturday, my 20-year-old son was flying into town from Atlanta for a week-long visit. He got as far as Seattle. The puddle-jumper to Yakima had been cancelled. They couldn't get him on a later flight and the shuttle buses weren't running. Grrrrr ... so we had to drive over to Sea-Tac to pick him up (more than a 3 hour round-trip) over the mountain pass (which thankfully was not *too* bad, but it certainly can be bad or closed this time of year).
>>
>>But at least now we have my kid to shovel the driveway!!! <g>
>>
>>~~Bonnie
>>
>>
>>
>>>The strange winter continues in Vancouver.
>>>- record rainfall
>>>- causes muddy water so we have to boil it
>>>- early snowfall that stays
>>>- 100+ km/h winds
>>>- this causes tons of power outages