Snow Bound

Hunkered down in the midst of a series of very atypical Seattle storms that hit one after the other, we remain snow bound inside the house for the third day. In 17 years I've never seen anything like this in our usually rainy, balmy city. If it snows, the melt off comes quickly and we are back to the usual overcast and cold drizzle with occasional sun breaks. Our thermometer read 17.6 degrees outside this morning, 62.8 inside (we are dressing warm).

Yesterday there was a near miss downtown as two buses spun out near the freeway. Fortunately, all the passengers got off the buses with only scrapes and bruises. I can only imagine the tragedy that was avoided had the buses gone over the edge onto traffic. Quite a scary scene to be sure. Chris described mayhem in his hilly neighborhood last night as a Suburban attempted to make it up a steep hill, spun out, and hit two cars parked curbside. Making it worse was the driver who just kept going. Chris and his buddy got the plate number and called the police. Then, when the police car arrived, another car headed up the same hill, spun out and hit the cop car! At that point, they closed the road.

So, as you can see, I'm not eager to get out on the roads today (even in a bus!). The roads are a disaster. Seattle is never prepared and neighborhood roads are forgotten. I tried to take the bus yesterday, stood at the stop around the corner from our house for 20 minutes and finally gave up. The sidewalks and roadways are like sheets of ice. The forecasters warn that sometime tonight another arctic blast plus high winds will hit and dump another load of snow on the Puget Sound area. Dang it!

Thankfully we have enough food, a warm fire, and a cat to keep us company. He's (of course) glued to Denny's chest although he occasionally ventures outside as evidenced by his little prints in the snow.