Washblog

"The stories are very Katrina like - people's roofs blew off, windows blew out while they were huddled in the corner, etc.,"

I got a telephone call last Sunday night from my DSHS supervisor for South Bend and Long Beach. She told me that the Administrator at the Aberdeen Community Services Office had asked me to forego working in South Bend for the coming week. The Aberdeen staff was making preparations for a rush into their lobby by thousands of storm victims who had lost most or all of their food to wind, water and  the loss of electric power.

The Aberdeen staff was in dire need of bilingual case workers, aware that a third to half of all applicants in the wake of storm losses that literally destroyed millions of dollars worth of food in private homes would speak little if any English.

I left Bay Center Monday morning at 6:45 and drove to Aberdeen where we worked on hastily organized systems for processing what would prove to be thousands of requests for emergency food.  

In reality a small bridge collapsing in a small timber town isn't that big of a deal, especially when you think about even bigger structures collapsing (here and here). But, there is an interesting note in the story of the Harp Rd. Bridge outside of Oakville. The truck that ended up ending the bridge weighed 180,000 pounds. The 40 year old bridge (on the list to be replaced by the county) was listed with a capacity of 35,000 pounds.

While the truck operator had a permit to use the brige, there is a lot of confusion about whether he should have been driving over that bridge at all. His load had not been inspected (as required) and there is no information on how fast he was driving (apparently speed can have a factor in over sized loads). And, is there any way that this same situation could be happening on other, more major spans in Washington?

It was a dark and stormy night .... yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got up yesterday morning, read the news, the blogs, worked on my fantasy basketball team and a Washblog entry until just before 9:00 AM.

One flicker ...
two flicker ...
three flicker gone.

Power went out and would stay out for close to 12 hours.