It's been over a week since the devastating and destructive winds wrecked havoc across our region. And even after a week, there were still hundreds, if not thousands, of homes without power. I just had a quick look at the outage map and things seem to be better now. But what has been noticeably disappointing is, as far as I can tell, how little coverage there has been in the national media about the damage. Is it because there were, luckily, so few human casualties from the event? Is it because I don't think a state of emergency was declared after the event? The politics from this weather event don't look. This is surprising since it is considered to be one of the worst weather events to hit our region in decades (though I think we've had worse winter storms in my time here). However, from a meteorological point of view, I think it is fascinating. The damage was really localized, with neighborhoods next to each other experiencing wildly different affects. This is why I was incredibly lucky to not lose power, when I had friends who had to stay at a hotel and didn't get their power back until the weekend. I think the worst winds were experienced out to the east of Seattle in the foothills of the Cascades. I went to one of my local state parks - Bridle Trails State Park - yesterday, and the damage was abundant. Maybe not as bad as I feared - I didn't see rows of trees blown over like dominoes. But still the number of uprooted trees - some probably very old - was kind of sad to see. The signs warned of hazardous trail conditions, but I didn't encounter any problems - they had been cleared of any trees or tree limbs by the time I was there. Instead, we were just left with a muddy trail covered with a layer of tree debris.
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