i am more snowed in than i was previously

Last Thursday's "storm" here in Seattle wasn't such a big deal in terms of precipitation, but it made getting around the city really difficult. Saturday and Sunday's storms (notice the lack of quotation marks here) left us with probably 6" of snow on the ground, and it made getting around almost impossible. If you didn't have a car with 4wd and/or chains, you weren't going anywhere outside of walking/snowshoeing/cross-country skiing/sledding distance.

Thursday's "storm" may have caught us by surprise, but everyone was ready for this one. I went to the grocery store a block from my house to pick up some cleaning supplies on Saturday. The grocery store is a favorite of Microserfs, soccer moms, and foodies for whom money is no object. I frequent the store, despite being a poor grad student, because it's a block away. People normally come to this store to pick up just a few specialty ingredients for that night's dinner. When I went there on Saturday, I was surprised to see couples wandering around the store and filling multiple carts with a month's worth of groceries.

I had so much trouble getting out of my neighborhood after Thursday's "storm" that I knew getting to the airport yesterday was going to be quite the challenge. I had a gameplan: stay at a hotel Sunday night so I could take an airport shuttle to catch my 7 AM flight to Minneapolis. My only problem was getting to the hotel on Sunday. I called all the major cab companies - the ones who were open at all were not dispatching cars to my part of the city. The city suspended all bus routes that came even remotely close to my neighborhood. All of my friends with cars were either unable to get anywhere on the slippery roads or were out of town. I ended up calling a limo service to pick me up, and a lot of money later, I got to my hotel near the airport.

I had been compulsively checking the airport's website the night before I left to make sure my flight hadn't been canceled. The site suggested that everyone come at least two hours before their flight leaves, and to bring their own snacks because the airport stores were running out of everything. They also advised that everyone check their flight status before coming to the airport so they could try and limit the number of people who were stranded there by canceled flights. I checked the site again before I left the hotel at 4 AM, and my flight was still scheduled. By 4:30, I was in a mile-long line at the airport, and I learned my flight was canceled.

It's a pretty helpless feeling to be flying on your own, have your flight canceled, and to know that no airlines were going to fly out of there until at least 3 PM. I called Northwest while waiting for the ticketing counter to open. The nice woman I talked to rescheduled my flight, but the earliest flight she could find to Minneapolis was for the evening of Christmas. After scheduling that flight as a back-up, I called my parents to see if they could find an earlier flight online through a different airline. They were able to book me a flight for tonight, and helped me find another hotel for the night.

This hotel is much nicer than the one I was in Sunday night. I had a big suite, and I felt like it was sort of a waste to have all this room to myself. I called a couple of friends who had flights early this morning to see if they wanted to come stay here too. They did, along with their other roommate, and we had a blast. We went to the nearby mall and I found a swimming suit (in December!) to wear in the hotel's hot tub. We ate dinner out and then came back to the hotel to relax in the hot tub. We stayed up late chatting and having girly drinks. I'm bummed that I couldn't make it home yesterday, but it was really fun having a snowed-in slumber party.

I'm going to try the airport again in an hour or so. I hope the situation has improved since yesterday. I'm glad I got to get out of there after a few hours yesterday and get to a hotel. It was really sad seeing people who had changed their flights multiple times, all to no avail, and were wondering if they'd be home in time for Christmas. I hope the chaos is a little more under control now. It hasn't snowed since Sunday, and I'm guessing the airlines have received more de-icer after depleting their stock over the weekend. My friends who left this morning were able to get out, so I think I should be fine.

i am snowed in.

By two inches of snow.

After all my years of living in WI, I don't remember many times that I was truly snowed in - as in, unable to get anywhere. My school district was notorious for not calling snow days very often. I had jobs before I even had my license, so I always had places I needed to be. Thanks to vehicles with 4wd, I could usually get there. If I truly couldn't get up the hill in my parents' neighborhood, I could at least count on being able to get out the next day after everything had been plowed.

Over the past week, Seattle has been hit with two winter "storms." It snows a handful of times a winter here, but this time is unusual because we have precipitation. Usually the snow melts as soon as it hits the roads, and while we may have some precipitation on the grass, it melts the next day when the temperatures go up.

There are about two inches of precipitation in my neighborhood. The precip varies a lot in the nearby suburbs and even from neighborhood to neighborhood within the city. Seattle has some interesting weather patterns (usually variations on rain) because of its position near the ocean and between two mountain ranges. So while there isn't much snow here, I've heard there are about four or five inches of snow in West Seattle. For a city that's not used to precipitation, that's a lot of snow.

The problem isn't the snow, so much - it's that the snow keeps melting and re-freezing. This condition is common in WI, but the ice is sort of unusual here since it's not normally this cold. Seattle residents aren't used to snow and they definitely don't know anything about ice.

The bigger problem is the hills. I've never been to San Francisco, but I hear Seattle being compared to San Fran pretty often because of the hills. We have hills that stretch for blocks - and some of them are really, really steep. Even vehicles with 4wd and chains can't get up some of these hills. Some of the hills are especially tricky because they have a lot of traffic and some stoplights in the middle. The city has closed some hilly streets because people were having so many issues.

All of these problems have combined to make travel nearly impossible right now. That's not an exaggeration - everyone I talk to has some horror stories about trying to get around. Less than half of the city bus routes are operating right now. On Thursday, during the thick of the storm, lots of busy intersections got blocked by bendy buses that were stuck. Because of those problems, Metro has stopped using bendy buses on most routes. Some routes have been canceled, and nearly every route has been revised in some way. Normally taking a taxi would be an alternative to taking the bus, but even the taxi companies are closed. All of them. Some people are opting to drive, and I would too, but my ankle is still keeping me from driving.

For a city that depends heavily on buses, the cancellations and revisions of bus routes have been crippling. The city maintains a website with updated route information, but unfortunately, it's not always accurate. Despite checking that page before I left, I had three failed attempts over the past two days to get out of my neighborhood (one of those attempts involved walking to a bus stop ten blocks away - and walking the ten blocks home when I realized the bus wasn't going to come after all). I finally figured out that the bus six blocks uphill from my house is still using that stop. There is a bus stop a block from my house, but unfortunately the buses that use that stop have been canceled or re-routed.

I've found that the best way to get information on the revised routes is by word of mouth. I'm not the only one who had problems catching the bus - everyone I talked to today had horror stories about the bus routes. At every stop, people were volunteering whatever information they had on route revisions. The bus drivers were very helpful, and had a surprising amount of info on other route revisions. The buses were all packed, which is not surprising considering there were so few of them running. The bus drivers advised people to ignore the bus schedules, since nothing was running on time. Surprisingly, despite all the frustration, people were generally friendly today. All we could really do was shrug our shoulders and laugh about it.

It's easy for people to blame the bus system. I don't think that's really fair though. If the bus ran more routes, we would have more bendy buses getting stuck in intersections. I do wish Metro's website was more accurate, though. The department of transportation is also receiving a lot of blame for not keeping the roads clear. What people don't seem to realize is that the city just isn't prepared for snow like this. We have so many other pressing transportation needs, we simply don't have the money to buy and maintain more snow removal trucks and train people to use them. Seattle residents routinely underfund transportation and then complain about it.

I did finally get a bus downtown today. I wouldn't have left the house, but I was going stir-crazy from being stuck in the house for three days. I tried to go downtown for physical therapy yesterday morning and this morning, but as I said, those were failed attempts. I was disappointed that I couldn't get down there because I'm leaving town soon, so I won't be able to go to physical therapy again for a couple of weeks. After having so much trouble, I was determined to get out of the house, so I tried again, and successfully caught the bus at the top of the hill. I probably wouldn't have tried so hard, but I had to finish up my Christmas shopping.

While on the bus, I noticed we passed some horrified tourists who were taking a lot of photos. I turned to see what they were looking at, and saw two buses hanging over I-5. It was a scary sight - especially since buses freak me out anyway - but it put things in perspective. When dealing with buses, it's better to play it safe.





I took these photos from the bus I was riding. Luckily, nobody was seriously hurt. I'm still wondering why the bus driver decided to take that street. You can't tell from the photos, but the buses are at the bottom of a short, steep hill. There is a fork in the road at the bottom of the hill, and below the guardrail is an on-ramp to the interstate. It's a cobblestone road, and since it's not a major street, I'm sure the city hasn't spent much time trying to clear the ice.

Well, at least I got all my shopping done today. Unfortunately I had to do a lot of walking to and from revised bus routes, and I'm feeling it now. My ankle and heel are really sore. My knee, which has been giving me problems lately, is pretty swollen. Luckily I shouldn't need to go anywhere for the rest of the weekend, until I fly out on Monday. It's going to snow again tomorrow, so I'm prepared to stay put. After having so much trouble getting around today, I'm in no hurry to try it again tomorrow.