Results tagged “pugetsoundenergy”

There is no question this week is going to be a hot one, as temperatures reach into the high 90s and perhaps even 100 degrees. As many people crank up the power and seek an air conditioned refuge away from the heat, Seattle City Light--here's their energy-saving tips to beat the heat--warns that their old equipment may fail as temperatures climb. Customers need to be prepared for potential outages. Grrreat.

The folks with Puget Sound Energy wanted to send a friendly reminder to be safe with your helium-filled Mylar balloons and kites this spring. No joke. Apparently, those pesky balloons (and kites) like to escape, floating up and away into high-voltage power lines, creating one colorfully charged safety hazard. PSE said Mylar balloons account for several outages per year. So hold on to your balloons and remember never fly kites near electric lines, in the rain, or during an electric storm.

Yesterday's stormy weather left over 35,000 homes in Western Washington without power. Nearly 20,000 of the homes affected were in Seattle and South King County. The National Weather Service warned of gusts of over 55 mph yesterday and, while it's no scientific measure, the windows of our house were rattling and the power flickered more than once last night. Thankfully, it never went out. The Washington State Ferry Service reported "steady winds at nearly 40 mph" off Alki Beach, which must have made for some unpleasantly rough weather on the Sound.

Winds the likes of which haven't been seen in nearly eight months are set to descend on our little burg tomorrow night. Forecasters say it's fifty-fifty right now whether they'll miss us to the north or land right on top of Duvall's fragile little power system. The good news is that everyone's generators haven't even had time to gather dust, much less make their way onto Craigslist. In fact, Seattlest even has some propane cannisters we didn't use during the summer camping season. First Puget Sound Energy customer to comment on this post after losing power tomorrow night gets 'em. Is that a rinkydink prize to win for being suddenly time-warped to the Stone Age? Last December if we'd have stood in front of G.I. Joe's with them we could have gotten upwards of $20 for them. Apiece! Anyway, we'll throw in a coffee at the cafe of your choosing to drink while you charge your laptop and cell phone.

Gas Works Park may not recover its former place as our #1 greatest park ever after its little tar leak last week. We took a walk over there yesterday and wandered around what was basically an empty space on a gray and prematurely cold day, pressing our nose up against the chain link here and there and dwelling on what exactly this park sits on top of: benzene, mercury, lead, etc. It's gross.

TONIGHT at Meany Hall, it's "Climate Change and the Future of Life on Earth," a two-hour multi-media presentation designed to freak your climatological shit out. It stars the world-famous paleoanthropologist, conservationist, and environmental activist: Dr. Richard Leakey. Shazam! (What? We never get to say "Shazam"!) Author of The Sixth Extinction, Dr. Leakey will talk "about our impact on the environment"...um, no, he's gonna open up a can of knowledgifying whup-ass is what.

Seattlest's windchimes chimed last night. That's usually an indication that winds are stronger than average. Usually our chimes just sit there limp and dead. The windstorm that was promised for last night turned out to be tamer than anticipated, though, or at least our threshold for windstorms is set so high that anything below sustained 45mph winds now seems pretty weak. We're under the impression that if someone in Woodinville sneezes a forest of undecided trees will hurtle themselves at feeder lines, but we're not hearing reports of a lot of new damage today outside of a Q13 story on West Seattle this morning. Here are the outages Seattle City Light currently recognizes.

King County Journal has the rundown of which areas are still without power, and when they're likely to get it.

It's been business as usual since the day after the storm in some Seattle neighborhoods. We eat, we drink, we Christmas shop, we gather all the shingles from the street and life goes on. Meanwhile, the Eastside continues to live red in tooth and claw. It's still mostly dark over there and crowds await Mel Gibson's next gasoline delivery at each service station. Hopefully it'll drive home how much energy it takes to power a 4000 square foot mcmansion full of today's technological wonders when someone's got to wait in line for gasoline to feed the generators. Hey, Eastside, maybe if you didn't try to cheap out of your property taxes by living near the city instead of inside of it you wouldn't be in this mess right now. Something you might want to think about next time the socialist tax collector comes around.

Yes, it's the new year, but we find it hard to look forward without a few final looks back. Instead of doing a straight-forward Favorite/Greatest/Best Films of 2005, we thought we'd reflect on some of our more interesting times at the movies during the past year.