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Thousands in Dark After Northwest Storm

Sunday December 17, 2006 10:16 AM

SEATTLE (AP) - Residents of the Pacific Northwest struggled to stay warm Saturday after the worst windstorm in more than a decade knocked out power to more than 1.5 million homes and businesses and killed at least six people.

More than 600,000 customers in Washington and Oregon still had no power Saturday, and utilities said some might have to wait into next week for their lights to go back on.

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire declared a state of emergency, and with temperatures expected to drop over the weekend, officials warned people not to use outdoor grills, propane heaters or other carbon monoxide-producing equipment indoors.

Firefighters in Kent found 33 people from four families suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning Friday night, fire Capt. Kyle Ohashi said. They had taken their barbecues inside to cook or heat their apartments as temperatures dipped into the 30s.

All were expected to survive, Ohashi said.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/s ... 50,00.html
Thousands in Dark After Northwest Storm | World Latest | Guardian Unlimited

Yep.....its bad up here. Some people drive around in their cars to stay warm and now it is hard to find gas.......all the stations are running out (the one that have power anyway).

Hope you're doin' OK!

Sure am. We had our gazebo blown over and lawn furniture scattered, but other than that no damage here.
We only lost our power once for about 1/2 hour and a couple of flickers lasting just seconds.
All around us got hit pretty bad though.

That same wind storm swept through Idaho earlier...we didn't have it as bad though.

On my drive to Seattle for a flight to Japan though met with some oddities. I tried taking a couple different exits for food, only to be met with dark intersections and no lights identifying where to go for unpowered fast-food resturants.

Fortunately the airport had power, but on the bad side the plane had damage, so we were thrown overnight into a DoubleTree inn (which suffered damage to a wing or two) which wasn't too bad, except we had nothing to do...

Hey Tim....Merry Christmas...good to see ya!

That storm blew part of my fence down and we had many downed trees.. Of course I have some more firewood now (always having a chain saw handy)

but we didn't lose power..