November 28, 2006
Seattlest Asks: How long did it take you to get home last night?
Lacking the foresight to leave work early yesterday, it took us three hours to make it home (we live in Shoreline). After checking the traffic online and seeing that I-5 was a pissed-off parking lot, we thought we'd be sneaky and head north via the Ballard/Crown Hill/Greenwood route. Needless to say, that didn't work out so well. Lots of icy hills along the way and a surprising number of rear-wheel drive vehicles sliding all over the road.
We ended up cutting our losses and pulling over for beer and Mexican food (not counted in the three-hour travel time).
So, how long did it take you to get home last night? Any Seahawk gamers out there? And what about this morning? Did the ice slow you down much? Are you still at home peeking out the blinds and sucking your thumb?
(Photo from KOMO-TV.com)
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Reading about all this snow has just been odd. Out here in Virginia it's almost December but we've still got days in the sixties and skies that are oh-so-blue. No Mad Max-leave-the-Saab-and-walk shenanigans out here.
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Two and a half hours, but it's a snow day today so I can't complain.
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I bolted the office right around when all of the "it's snowing on the northside!" emails came, which was 5ish. By the time I got on a bus it was snowing downtown, but it didn't seem to slow us down that much until we got to the hills in my neighborhood, at which point I got out and walked. Less than an hour all told, downtown to Wallingford.
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I flew in from Miami last night at 10pm and got home at 1am. Apparently, two buses collided by the airport entrance off of I-5. My ride was sitting in dead traffic for an hour and a half before making a U-turn to find another way in. Maybe we should get someone from Gothamist to teach us how to drive on ice.
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One hour from West Seattle to Fremont at 11pm. The West Seattle bridge was icier than it looked. As I watched a truck slide into the barriers next the left lane, I slid into the barrier on the right side. I know how to drive on ice, but it's a tough call to make when turning INTO your spin means turning into a concrete barrier. Ended up hitting it pretty lightly and no damage was done. The truck ahead of me wasn't so lucky - the driver estimates a few thousand dollars worth of damage. The scary thing is that I saw him driving- he definitely wasn't doing more than 25mph. The 99/ Aurora bridge must have gotten icy too at some point - it took about 20 minutes to crawl across it due to a pretty bad-looking accident in the northbound lanes. So watch out for those bridges, everyone!
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I lucked out--left at 4. Was sailing along north on I-5 when I saw this huge, black cloud looming over N. Seattle. When we got about to the ship canal, traffic slowed to a crawl--probably back up from all the low visibility up north. We got off at 50th, had no trouble at that point getting up the hill over to greenlake, and basically my commute wasn't any longer than normal. Like I said, I lucked out.
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I lucked out too, left early and sailed home across I-90 in less time than my normal commute. Hunkered in and listened to the sound of people spinning out on the small hills near my house.
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I'm glad everyone lucked out. I left Mukilteo (just south of Everett) at around 7:30AM. I didn't arrive home until 11:10PM. I live in the U-District. Needless to say I told my boss I won't be in today but working from home in my South Park Kenny Slippers.
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The usual 20min home on the bicycle to the East shoulder of Magnolia.
Through Myrtle Edwards Park was kinda sketch as I dind't have any goggles so I could barely see with all the snow getting in my eyes.
This morning some saints were out salting the paths through the park.
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Stuck at work until five in Renton, my girlfriend and I thought we'd just stay for a while and let people move along. So at 5:15, with no snow in sight, we checked into a theater in Tukwila. Around seven, we walked back out into a pretty awesome winter wonderland. And then we got on the road. Stuck on Southcenter Parkway for 45 minutes, we turned back, got onto Strander, and were stuck there for an hour. We pulled into Taco Bell 15 minutes before they closed up (early), and having no idea how bad things were (radio never helps when you're stuck in the problem), added to our quarter tank of gas. Another 45 minutes on West Valley got us up to Grady, the source of most of the backup. Once we finally reached I5, all was clear. Didn't see any accidents, but yelled at some jerks trying to ride the sidewalk and oncoming lanes to make progress. Took about three and a half hours to get from Renton to Seattle.
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It took us -- and by "us," I mean me and Little Miss Seattlest -- three hours and fifteen minutes to get home. From Portland, thank goodness -- we left in the middle of the day.
Then we were out at the library and the grocery store when the heavy snow started, and I was quite pleased that we took care of those errands when we did -- we were in the Wedgwood QFC for 15 minutes and garnered an inch or two of snow on the car in that time.
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3 hours from downtown to Northgate. I was lucky and had a seat on the bus. My husband was on the bus in front of us and had to stand the whole way.
Brought a much longer book with me for tonight.
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Well i ended up in an icy ditch and almost bought the farm
http://www.8bitjoystick.com/archives/jake_screw_you_old_man_winter.php
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I got into Sea-Tac last night at about midnight. By the time I retrieved by bag and my car, it was 1 AM. It took me about 90 minutes to drive to Fremont, about 45 minutes of which was spent trying to get from the parking lot to SR 518. The roads around the airport were really insane, icy and littered with wrecks.
Did King County lose the recipe for road salt?