We'll Weather the Weather Whatever the Weather

First the rain came. At rush hour. I was on Rainier Ave in south Seattle. Rainier is a four lane road (sometimes five with a turning lane) with storefronts all along the way. I was at a complete stop when a brief torrent hit. I had my windshield wipers on full speed and I still couldn't see. It didn't last long. I continued on, driving on the inner lane as the curb lane was flooded. Then I came up to a small lake that had developed. I know you aren't suppose to drive through standing water, but this was rush hour, the water went from one store front door all the way across the street to the next store front door and there were cars coming from both directions. It was a long block and there wasn't a cross street to escape on. I slowly drove through it, my feet feeling the water that was hitting the floor of my car from underneath. As far as I can tell, the water only came up to the bottom of my car. I thought of the camp song, "Going on a Guava Hunt." Can't go around it, can't go over it, can't go under it, gotta go through it!
And here is a picture of the new pond that the Columbia City neighborhood has gained.


You can make out the store front doors on this picture, looking west.















And the other side of the street, looking east. Can you make out the tree and poles?

I made it to Issaquah. While stopped at a traffic light, my windshield wipers began squeaking across my dry windshield. But I could see that there was plenty of rain coming down. It was coming down at such an angle that no drops were touching my window!

The show I am doing right now is at First Stage. A small, old, rickety building. We are even on a different power grid than our big theatre across the street. It tends to lose power over here more than Mainstage. We made emergency plans if the power was to go out. The lights flickered through the whole show and had a 'brown out' that only lasted a few seconds. At intermission we stepped outside. No rain, slightly windy. WARM wind. The actual storm wasn't due until midnight. During the second act, we could hear the wind pick up. Actually, I first thought that a plane was doing a flyby right over us when the first large gust came. The people up above me in the booth (the ones closer to the roof) practically jumped out of their seats. Some of the sound effects I use in the show are different strengths of wind. I felt like I really didn't need to use them (or worried that I would startle some audience members when I played the strong winds). We made it through the whole show.

Then I had to take the I-90 floating bridge across Lake Washington to get home. At 11:30 at night. The real storm had started. The other floating bridge had been closed. The radio said that the winds on Lake Washington had reached 60mph. The only way I can describe it is like driving on gravel.

Seattle had power. It wasn't until I got to my neighborhood that I started seeing patches of darkness. Every other block had power. I was assuming I wouldn't have power. We seem to lose ours a lot, mostly because of construction going on around us. I was surprised to see that I did.

My bed is next to a large window. And as I've mentioned before, I have a lovely view of a path with lots of trees. I decided to sleep on the love seat that is further inside the apartment. There is a sensor light for the backyard. It stayed on all night because the trees and bushes were swaying so much it was triggering the sensor light. The lights in my studio only flickered twice. As I was getting ready for bed I heard a large "BAM" in the distance. I don't know if it was a tree breaking or falling or a transforming exploding but I froze, ready for the power to do something but there wasn't even a flicker.