I think it was Tuesday that we drove out to see if the trail to the lake was open. It was! Yay! We had planned to ride yesterday, but the smoke rolled in. That was disappointing. So, we went to Costco to buy toilet paper. It's expected that prices for tp will increase significantly now that 47 has put tariffs on Canada. Wood pulp for toilet paper comes from Canada.
Yesterday
we were on television. A reporter came and interviewed
us about our experiences evacuating. We were chosen
because Jim wrote an email to three members of the City Council about our experience evacuating and included posts from Nextdoor about other residents' experiences. He also sent it to three members of the local media. There is a lot of
concern in the public about how difficult it was to evacuate
on Indian Trail due to traffic volumes, and watching flames
in their rear view mirrors. This concern is
exacerbated by the fact that a 300 unit apartment complex is
moving through the planning commission process, which will
put an additional 300-600 cars on Indian Trail, a main
evacuation route. So Madeleine Mullins from KXLY came to our
house, carrying a big honking tripod with a camera on it,
and talked with us. She's very likeable. Most of
it was edited out, but I think we presented well and did not
sound like wingnuts. The article and the interview can
be found
here. The video starts playing muted, so look in the
lower left hand corner and click on the sound sign with the
slash through it.
Today we rode to the
lake. The heat was off, the air quality was good, and
it was just a stellar day. The park employee
previously told us the fire had burned to the fence and the
recreation area. Actually it burned the fence as
well. The was no water, and no fire retardant, so I'm
not sure how they put it out.
There is a really good article
about why Spokane did not run out of water while fighting the fires.
It also mentions the fact that the waste water treatment plant ran for
18 hours and performed perfectly with either no staff, or minimal
staff. Previous urban fires have done terrible damage because their
water systems could not hold up to the demand. In this instance Spokane
did get the infrastructure right.
I have a photo from the other night. Today's original post had to be deleted because it was infected with css code that was not only messing with that post, but everything I've ever published. I have no idea how this happens. Hopefully I will get lake pictures up at some time in the future. Right now I would just like to be done with this.
Sun set.
OK, I quit.
Same problem here with evacuation routes only from hurricanes. Hurricane Ike in 2008 hit Galveston and then barrelled through Houston, completely obliterated a coastal community. Government urged everyone to evacuate which clogged the routes, traffic at a standstill, people ran out of gas and ended up sitting out the storm in their cars.
ReplyDeleteI believe that most infrastructure is built for mid-range useage. I think back to the city, and in our area there were two options for reaching my neighbourhood. One of those (and the most convenient) travelled across an overpass. On both sides the road had three lanes, though the furthest right was mean to access the perimeter highway or access to the neighbourhoods adjacent. However that didn't keep drivers from scooting down the third lane and then trying to sneak into the lane, especially early morning and evening. When the city took the overpass out of commission for repairs, they didn't bother to add a lane which would have made sense. All to say, I can't imagine how difficult it would be if the city had to evacuate especially as there have been several more neighbourhoods developed in the past 10 years.
ReplyDeleteGood on the two of you to speak out!
Good job you guys! Jim did a service to the community bringing attention to infrastructure and the adde3d bit from Alison about burning up in a car certainly drives the danger home. There will be that same problem here- small single lane road from Chuckanut, developers wanting to destroy the hillside on the bay with their hideous greed.
ReplyDeleteYou both did a terrific job!
ReplyDelete