My Ballard

22 responses so far ↓

• 1 Lindsarella // Jul 2, 2008 at 7:08 pm

  Yeah! YEAH! I love thunderstorms! well- except when they’re SCARY! Also- I think something must be on fire, I just saw the fire truck head down 85th! ;-/ hope everyone’s ok!

• 2 K // Jul 2, 2008 at 7:37 pm

  I love it!

• 3 Geeky Swedes // Jul 2, 2008 at 7:45 pm

  That fire truck was headed to an automatic fire alarm, so likely nothing.

• 4 Lindsarella // Jul 2, 2008 at 8:12 pm

  Well… ok Geeky… Do you have a police scanner?

• 5 Keith // Jul 2, 2008 at 8:37 pm

  It was nearly hailing up near 85th this evening! Crazy

• 6 BallardG // Jul 2, 2008 at 8:56 pm

  I’m from MN and I miss a good thunderstorm every now and then……

• 7 Geeky Swedes // Jul 2, 2008 at 9:00 pm

  Actually, we just bought a scanner on Amazon, which will arrive in a week or so. But if you Google “Seattle 911,” you’ll find the Seattle Fire Department’s dispatch log. :)

• 8 mom // Jul 2, 2008 at 9:29 pm

  ballard g.

  agreed! w/the dark skies too.

• 9 chelsea! // Jul 2, 2008 at 9:40 pm

  A) Buying a scanner tomorrow. Love those things. Didn’t know we sold them.

  B) The hail looked like snow down by Market/28th. It was like Christmas in Orlando!

  Our lights have flickered a few times…not sure if it’s related to the OMGZWEATHER.

• 10 Keith // Jul 2, 2008 at 9:50 pm

  our lights are flickering too … we’re in vicinity of java bean

• 11 Bella // Jul 2, 2008 at 10:38 pm

  A little tardy on this, but traffic lights were out at 85th and 15th, around 10 pm. I actually got hit going through intersection because of it.

• 12 silver // Jul 3, 2008 at 5:50 am

  Ouch! Bella! Hope you’re okay!

  Here’s another cool tool for tracking Seattle Fire Department calls. It doesn’t always work, and it sometimes hangs the browser, but it is cool:

  http://www.public911.com/911/Seattle

  It plots the SFD calls on a Google map in (nearly) real time.

  It’s 6:44 AM here next to the-crater-that-was-Denny’s, and raining hard. Saw the hail last night - my cat was talking to it. (She talks to snowflakes too.) We’ve been enjoying the light show.

  I often warn people who are new to the Pacific Northwest that we are total goobers when it comes to thunderstorms. Everybody runs to the windows and goes “OOOOOOOOO! Ahhhhhhhh!” ;-)

  - Silver

• 13 silver // Jul 3, 2008 at 5:53 am

  chelsea! - you know you’ll need a “trunking scanner” right?

  I have a Uniden Trunktracker III that I hate, but scanners pretty much all suck in terms of their UI. If you want, I can point you in the direction of a couple of online forums where the scanner gurus hang out. It’s a great way to get questions answered!

  - Silver

• 14 Milo Dakkat // Jul 3, 2008 at 8:03 am

  I love this blog! It’s community on top of community and there’s nothing more communal than the same clap of thunder waking the neighborhood up at 2am. I thought the Reds had pushed the button down for sure.

• 15 lakreitz // Jul 3, 2008 at 8:15 am

  to add to what silver said…. we run to the window with phone in hand to call friends.

  Last night I was sailing and at the sight of the first flash, we immediately sailed in……leaving the rest of the other boats out there waiting for the storm to pass. Hmm, floating out on the water with a lightning rod - we really aren’t that smart about lightning here.

• 16 Bella // Jul 3, 2008 at 8:54 am

  Fortunately, I was not hit hard.
  Of course, dealing with insurance is never fun regardless. We’ll see how that goes.

• 17 SarahJC // Jul 3, 2008 at 10:52 am

  Were the lights out at Market and 15th too? My mom drove through there and saw two police cruisers either right in the intersection or off to the side? Anyone?

  We walked into Luisa’s for dinner and it was hot and muggy, we walked out 90 mins later to a downpour of sorts! I loved the thunder and lightening! Maybe not so much while we were at Home Depot, but afterwards definetly!!! :-)

• 18 randi // Jul 3, 2008 at 11:35 am

  yikes bella my boyfriend and i were driving through that intersection after it just seeemed to have occured and witnesses were getting out of their cars…that is not a good place for a power outage

• 19 mel // Jul 3, 2008 at 12:56 pm

  We were just finishing up our dinner at Thai Siam when the thunder hit. One loud boom and the lights were out… it sure made for an exciting night at Thai Siam. I imagine there were some sad patrons who arrived later to find the restaurant closed and without power.

• 20 Bella // Jul 3, 2008 at 1:55 pm

  It’s funny, Randi, having been in the ‘hood for about 12 years now, I’ve seen these lights out plenty of times. It’s such a HUGE effing intersection that it is amazing to me that nothing occurred to that guy that something was up.
  Also, if our positions had been reversed, even if I didn’t notice the lights out, I would have noticed a vehicle in the middle of the intersection, and slammed on my brakes and screeched to a halt, which was not the case here. He wasn’t going that fast, but he just sorta drove right into me. No screeching or skidding at all. Whatevs. No injuries, waddya gonna do?

• 21 pioggia // Jul 3, 2008 at 2:21 pm

  No lightning but still plenty of thunder here in East Ballard this morning, and it went from sort of misty to pouring buckets in the space of like 10 minutes while I was trying to sneak in some garden work…

• 22 RANDI // Jul 5, 2008 at 1:36 pm

  yeah Bella I totally know what you mean…I was wondering what was up there…what did he say?? Was he like “duhh….uhhhh…”?? People in WA state are already 4-way challenged enough as it is, so when the lights are out at a huge intersection like that madness ensues. Except people are normally like “no, you go”, “no, you”. then both people attempt to go at the same time and then brake..repeat at least 3 times before someone finally goes thru…

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