Two Knee-Jerk Liberal Reactions To The Continued Power Outages

As someone else already pointed out, Madison Park and other mansion-heavy areas are also without power.

On the other hand, I kind of KNEW this would happen. When the lights went out, I remember thinking "And White Center/Rainier Valley will be the last to get the power back".

Then again, I drove home from Renton through Ranier Valley during the storm, and there was some very serious flooding. So maybe that has something to do with it?

What do you mean Knee-Jerk Liberal Reaction? I have seen more SUVs and Volvos on the Eastside with “Impeach Bush” bumper stickers than anywhere on the countryside. It is the redneck, male, chauvinist, conservative pigs in rubber boots who are busting their hid-side to restore power to the city that is full of wining rich liberals huddling around scented candles…

It's day 5, and I have no power. I live on a home on Capitol Hill, and believe me, I'm anything but smug right now.

We lived in the house for two nights without heat because I called 17 hotels and none had a single room available. None. We stayed warm by using every blanket we had, and taking hot baths heated with water on the stove (luckily, we could light the gas stove by hand).

When we finally got into a hotel Sunday night, the staff told us about how many people had been awful--trying to bribe them for a room, etc. The people at the hotel were also working round the clock, and seemed exhausted.

All around us, people were christmas shopping, going out for drinks, just generally not seeming to give a crap that large sections of the city--or in our case, just one darkened street--were having some of the worst experiences of our lives: cold, in the dark (literally), and just really freaked out.

The whole idea that any one section is targeted or not is not just clueless, typical-Seattle discussion to have, and the reason that blogs are often just a big, fat waste of time.

We spent the weekend hiding out and trying to stay warm at various libraries and coffeeshops. Instead of taking the time to write up this absurd entry into a blog that's done a crap job of covering this storm and its consequences, why don't you just unplug already?

And if you're at a coffeeshop when the next power outage happens, stay home and give your outlets to us, so we can recharge our cell phones and get in contact all of our friends and family. You're in the way.

Say what you will about institutional racism and so on in terms of people getting power back on. I really don't have too much of an opinion about it, other than probably just long term neglect in poorer neighborhoods is to blame. Classism ALWAYS trumps racism, though they often go together.

However, please note that West Seattle's hospital, according to Seattle Power's hotline, was the last hospital to regain power. Which is obviously ridiculous. Hospitals should have been up immediately, and the fact that the one hospital that wasn't was in an area that (other than Alki) is largely poor, not white, and has more non-English speakers than the rest of the city.

Sorry, but you don't get to mock the rich for having the power out in their mansions, then complain about how the power outage unfairly targets the poor in the same post. Then again, I guess you do, since you just did.

reading:

Hills? Magnolia, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill and Crown Hill are fine.

I'm suspicious of the race issue being both true and universally true in US cities. Over the summer, there was a blackout in Queens that lasted the better part of a week. Astoria, being the closest part of Queens to Manhattan, definitely had power back first (about three days later), while the largely Hispanic neighborhood of Woodside was out for five days. Believe me, I was not the first to grumble that the power would've been on the same day if the Upper West Side had been affected instead.

I think we can all agree on this: for whatever reason, it takes a lot longer to restore power to South Seattle than North Seattle. Why?

Windy streets? Maybe, but there are plenty of those in Sand Point and in North Ballard, and all of these have power.

Hills? Magnolia, Queen Anne, Capitol Hill and Crown Hill are fine.

I think it's pretty obvious that there's some sort of infrastructure problem in the South end, and no matter what the cost, it ought to be fixed. I'm happy to pay a little more on my light bill so everyone in the city can rely on their utilities.

The wealthiest Eastside residents are the most likely to be able to check into a hotel or find other comfortable accommodations until the power returns. It's the working and middle class citizens of the Eastside, not the property tax evaders, who are likely suffering the most from this outage.

Um, sure most of S. Seattle went longer without power, but if you look at that map, it also shows most of the neighborhoods bordering L. WA: Madison Park, Madrona, Leschi, plus Mt. Baker, Lakewood, etc., were dark at the same time.

Given that most of these areas are known to include some of the tonnier, if not just plain most expensive real-estate in the City, I'd have to say this suggestion of some sort of "conspiracy against the poor" being perpetrated by SCL is just bull-puckey.

In looking at this map, I'd have to say that geography would seem to be playing a more pertinent role in the speed of power restoration than race or socio-economic position; these are some of the hilliest areas in Seattle, with less-than-square surface street grids, and lots and lots of greenbelt to boot. The roads are more twisty-windy in a lot of these neighborhoods, particularly closer to the Lake and the Sound, and most likely there are more downfalls as well, making finding and repairing downed lines much more problematic than on relatively flat, more evenly laid-out street grids found in many other locations throughout the city.

This whole blog post belongs in the "Ask an Uptight Seattleite" feature of The Seattle Weeekly.

Um you forgot smug Queen Anne. We had power Friday night suckers.

Speaking of smug Capitol Hill, there are two large trees across 14th Ave E, one at Roy, another at East Thomas, and then one more south of East John on 13 Ave E. Other than someone wrapping them with Do Not Cross tape, nothing has happened to them. The one at East Thomas is still wrapped in the power lines it brought down.

You'd think with this firewood shortage, someone with a pickup and a chainsaw would be in business right now.

Maybe you want to play the race card, but I know for a fact that there were areas north and south that didn't have power for some time.

Who is responsible for Mercer Island? They didn't have power most of the weekend, and still might not ...

I happen to live in Bellevue (which contrary to your writing is a City) and was fortunate to have power throughout, but many people here and elsewhere were not as lucky. Contrary to popular belief, I can attest to the fact that not everyone in Bellevue lives in a mansion, has electric gates or drives a hummer or suv (although all of those would be cool ...).

That orange spec in North Seattle: Sir Mix-a-Lot's house.

Just thinking (as I sit in my toasty downtown studio) that George Bush is up there in Air Force One, watching our meltdown. (What do you mean, he's not?) Without power, those McMansions can't even open gates & garage doors to unleash their Hummers.

Can we get rise above the level of hackneyed stereotypes? Yes, it's fun to slam the Eastside for being the home of giant SUV's and huge houses, but the fact is there are far more people living in modest homes working average jobs and trying to provide a decent life for their families. And there are tens of thousands of immigrant families doing the same.

But it's so much easier to sit smugly in your little Capitol Hill apartment eating takeout Thai food and spewing generalizations. When are you going to grow up?