Results tagged “coastguard”

• In addition to a $7.5 billion transpo budget, Gov. Chris Gregoire has approved a 40 percent tax break for the state's failing newspaper industry. While we tip our hat to help our fellow newsies, we have to ask, what about us? What about the other online news guys?
• An expected zoo of U.S. Coast Guard helicopters will descend upon Elliott Bay today from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. conducting a slew of low-flying exercises. Duck and take photos for us.
• King5 TV wins for best headline of the day: New weapon turns fire ants into headless zombies.

• Somewhere on the fringes of our consciousness, we're aware that there is a place called West Seattle, which is where people live who don't mind being repeatedly screwed. That's why they won't be surprised to find out that the "low bridge" will keep opening during their commute.
• My Ballard commenters have theories--boy, do they have theories--about who's responsible for all those bike "carcasses" being left along the Burke-Gilman.
• Meanwhile, the Central District News has a theory of its own which involves dinosaurs being thin at one end...whoops, wrong one...which involves Seattle U building a new stadium for its fancy-schmancy Division I basketball team.

• My Ballard is covering the search for a missing local swimmer at Golden Gardens. One swimmer had already been rescued from the water and taken to the hospital to be treated for hypothermia. As of 11 p.m., the Coast Guard and rescue divers were still looking for a second missing swimmer. UPDATE: The search for the missing swimmer has been called off. A recovery effort has begun to locate the missing swimmer's body.
• Blogging Georgetown has confirmed that an advertisement declaring the sale of a local restaurant is indeed about the beloved veggie and brew bar Georgetown Liquor Company.
• The ever-witty hyper-local Capitol Hill Seattle has a number of recommended activities for this weekend's car-free hours at Volunteer Park.

Shortly before 3am on Easter Sunday, the Alaska Coast Guard received a mayday call from the Seattle-based, Alaskan Ranger. The fishing trawler was flooding, taking on water in its rudder room. The ship sank en route to Mackerel grounds in a stormy Bering Sea, with 20-foot waves and 30 mph winds. Four crew members, including the captain, died of hypothermia when the ship sank. Forty-two members of the crew were rescued, plucked out of the Bering Sea by Coast Guard helicopters and rescue ships. Some of the survivors had been in the Bering Sea for upwards of four hours before being rescued.

First it was severed feet washing ashore, now it is empty bottles of rat poison. The bottles, which have thus far been empty, have been washing up on Washington shores since last fall. That spring trip to the coast is sounding less appealing every day.

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods.

Another Seattle-based cruise ship has been involved in an incident up in the touristy waters of Alaska. Running aground is so last month, though--today the cool kids are colliding with fishing ships. The wee Spirit of Yorktown, a 257' cruise ship belonging to Cruise West of Seattle collided with the fishing vessel Adirondack on Monday. The Adirondack suffered extensive damage, including a crushed top house, but luckily not including a pierced hull. There weren't any injuries.

This is the kind of rescue we like at Seattlest. There's no ambiguity about it--the guy falls, he gets hurt, and a Coast Guard helicopter goes up to 7,000 feet to fetch him.

Let's take a look back at a week that raised this Zen koan: if Kevin Federline got into a wrestling ring with a wrestler, who would you root for?

From time to time we residents of this unique/Northwestern/American city develop blindspots into which it's difficult to see. Jonathan Raban has made a good go of assisting us in these situations --sometimes just by nudging the mirror a little-- so we contacted him hoping he could help with a little perspective on our viaduct dilemma. He doesn't disappoint. Discussed are the Viaduct, the waterfront, South Lake Union, Aurora Ave North, the Tube, traffic, money, legacies, neuroses, wagers against the future, Seattle's misconceptions, Seattlest's misconceptions and, finally, Jonathan's upcoming books.

The story of the BC ferry that wrecked this week is actually a couple thousand stories in one. A huge ferry sank and that's pretty interesting in and of itself especially here where we have similar boats, but then there's the story of how the Coast Guard and a gang of aboriginal island villiagers in fishing boats plucked everyone out of the water safely. Then there was a scramble to make sure that as much oil was contained from the wreck as possible. Now the islanders served by the ferry are freaking about supplies and raiding stores.

-A group of Seahawks players were attacked by an automated gate that struck the van they were riding in today, but luckily it was just a bunch of practice squad scrubs like Hasselbeck, Alexander, Hutchinson, Jones and Boulware instead of the team's stars. Everyone seems ok.

While Seahawk fans were cheering on the home team and celebrating a trip to the most Super of Bowls yesterday a nearby tug boat gave up on life and sank. The 101' Island Brave went down in 30' of water near the mouth of the Duwamish on the west side of Harbor Island with 20,000 gallons of diesel fuel and nearly pulled another tug down with it. We're guessing the accident was not a result of marauding Seahawks fans, although if it's painted blue and green with "12"s all over it when they raise it we'll let you know.

Popeye Banned From Coast Guard: The d'rigouritude of body art can trace its lineage back to your grandfather's classic navy tattoos. The anchor, the battleship, the waving flag and the skull and bones may not be stretched as tautly across Grandpap's chest as they once were, but they're still occasionally on display. However, they don't seem to stop him from shaking his head at your tribal bands and eyebrow piercings. New Coast Guard regulations restricting tattoos and other body modifications were reported today in the P-I to put an end to it all. No more sleeves, face tats or split tongues - Sorry, Seattle, the Coast Guard isn't for you. "The 1940s, party-hard sailor is not the image we're going for," Chief Petty Officer Keith Alholm was quoted as saying.

Puget Sound is not that big. It's deep, sure, but there aren't really many (any?) places on the Sound where you can't see land all around you and every ferry run has at one time or another struck Seattlest as very swimmable. Never mind the fact that we've struggled with large lap pools or have been driven to the brink of sanity by those infinity pools. The Sound strikes us as swimmable. So when a helicopter ditches into the Sound we find it hard to believe that it's so difficult to retrieve it. Nobody saw this happen? The entire Sound is surrounded by the living room windows of rich people and not a single one of them spotted a helicopter falling out of the sky? As soon as Seattlest gets our due we're going to get ourselves one of those Puget Sound view windows and we will then devote ourselves entirely to staring out of it. You can be sure when the flaming wreckage of a helicopter plunges into the water like a meteorite that we'll be able to tell investigators, "Yeah, right there. It's swimmable from the end of our pier."

The Seattle-based U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Healy arrived at the North Pole on Monday as a part of an international scientific mission. The 420' Healy is accompanied by the Swedish icebreaker Oden and together the ships are offically set to conduct sea floor mapping and ice coring exercises, but if you believe that's their only mission than Seattlest needs to clue you into the military significance of the S. Claus Northern Compound. We're just saying, you don't go to the North Pole for ice cubes. The next destination for the Healy is Tromsø, Norway. (If the cartoonish qualities of the map linked in the previous sentence seem odd to you, you should see the plan for the Aftermath of the Iraq Invasion that's hidden away inside the Pentagon.)

After a weekend of pulling our hair out and screaming "why" upwards over various human and environmental tragedies in the Gulf of Mexico, we were greeted with a number of teacup tempests in our own backyard this morning. Cleanup following the Gig Harbor fire of last week is moving forward with contractors said to be removing 3-4 boats (charred hulls) from the water daily. According to the Coast Guard, a worse environmental situation was averted because the city recently purchased 600 feet of oil containment boom goodness. Three cheers for preparedness.

Fishing, water skiing, sailing, carbon monoxide poisoning; it's another fun-filled summer weekend on the lakes in the state of Washington! An unfortunate reveler died on Saturday at Lake Tapps while participating in what has come to be known in the media (but can't possibly be called in real life) "teak surfing."

Seattlest has bad weekends from time to time. They're unavoidable. Sometimes you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. You burn yourself making coffee. It's raining. You realize your phone's been dead for hours. It's so packed at Fred Meyer you just give up on your 68-pack of toilet paper and get one roll from 7-11 that costs you $4 and has a layer of gross gas station dust on the top of it. The Mariners lose. Your dinner date cancels. A trip to the dock reveals a little more water in the bilge than appropriate. The humanity! You just want to get back to work on Monday morning.

Perhaps you never told your little brother that it was you who hid gum in his hair and stuck his hand in warm water while he was sleeping. He's always thought it was your older brother Paul, and you've let him think that since 1976. We've all got something to come clean about. Even Election Director Dean Logan might just eventually spill about those mysteriously missing ballots. We say, let it out, no point in holding it in any longer.