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Lobbyists mount a last-ditch bid for survival in the Pritchard Building cafeteria Friday afternoon, sustaining themselves with lukewarm food and tepid coffee as life-giving heat slowly oozes from the plate-glass windows.
By Erik Smith
Staff writer/ Washington State Wire
OLYMPIA, Jan. 23.—Relief swept the state’s capital city as the lights started coming back on and the town’s plucky residents could finally end their brave struggle for survival. For half a week Olympia’s courageous citizens hovered on the brink as the power winked out, the Internet shut down, phones went silent and cable television went dark.
It was an experience that forever changed the lives of those who lived through it. Temperatures plummeted into the low thirties, practically zero-Kelvin by Western Washington standards. Olympians could almost see their breath as they huddled beneath blankets on their living room sofas. When the sun went down, they were left to shiver in the dark and grope for their flashlights and wonder how on earth prehistoric man managed to endure times like these. It didn’t take long for the batteries to run down in their cell phones, iPods and portable Nintendo game systems. Said one, “It’s like camping out, only we don’t have to leave home.” Many residents reported that they were forced to make conversation with their families.
And so for a few brief days in Olympia came the end of civilization as we know it. The state’s political world stopped turning. The Capitol essentially shut down in the middle of a legislative session, and there wouldn’t have been any news to report even if Washington State Wire had been able to find a working wi-fi hotspot anywhere in town. A quick spin around the city Sunday night showed much of the city was still dark. And the only real story in Olympia was that a city where people normally have nice haircuts and wear suits and skirts found itself cold, wet and miserable, and wished it was someplace where it could get a hot shower.
No Getting Around It
The trouble began Wednesday with the record 14-inch snowfall in the South Puget Sound area. It was just deep enough to slow traffic to a crawl, cause cars to spin out, and prompt everyone from Eastern Washington to laugh at those total weenies from Western Washington who don’t know what a real winter is like.
But even eastsiders stopped laughing Thursday. Temperatures rose just above freezing. The snow started to melt. Then temperatures fell again and the slush turned to ice. Trees buckled under the weight, and everywhere was the sound of cracking and crashing as branches fell to the ground.
And when the trees themselves started falling and taking out power lines, everything came to a halt. A big one fell in a front yard along Olympia’s 16th Avenue, and when it toppled Thursday evening it yanked the cables so hard that down the street a power pole snapped with a terrible splintering sound.
Washington State Wire was first on the scene, mainly because the pole was about 40 feet from its living room. That particular pole also was 50 feet from the Capitol substation, which provides the power for much of Olympia. The break in the line plunged the entire neighborhood between the Capitol and the Brewery into darkness. All told, 40,000 Thurston County residents lost power, among 250,000 in the South Puget Sound area. But more importantly, the pole fell right across the driveway and kept Washington State Wire from backing out the car. There was no escape.
Capitol is Next to Go
Power lines remained intact on the other side of the street, linking the Capitol substation to the state’s big office buildings. So lights stayed on at the Capitol. By late Friday morning members, staffers, lobbyists and reporters began straggling in, most of them dazed and chilled after a frigid night at home. The dress code was abandoned; they arrived in boots and sweaters, and they gathered in the Pritchard Building, the former state library on the Capitol Campus where seemingly the city’s only functioning cafeteria was in operation.
And while they drank hot coffee and felt grateful for it, the transformers at the Capitol started popping and the lights went out.
A diesel generator kept the power going for a couple of hours at the House office building, where the House Education Committee held a hearing on charter schools. It was attended by every reporter left at the Capitol, not really because they were interested but because the room temporarily offered live power outlets for laptops and the only functioning wi-fi signal in the city.
Meanwhile the rest of the Capitol crowd huddled in the Pritchard Building cafeteria, where lukewarm food sold quickly in the dark and lobbyists sipped coffee that gradually became tepid. Vending machines stopped working. Heat escaped through the plate-glass windows and the temperature dropped markedly as the afternoon wore on. The light outside grew dim. And the only thing that kept anyone sitting there was the sure knowledge that darkness would fall and the last vestige of civilized society would soon be gone.
Said one lobbyist, “Pretty soon we’re going to be like that guy who got lost on Mt. Rainier. We’re going to start burning our money for warmth.”
Thank goodness it didn’t come to that.
For Washington State Wire, there was no escape.
Heroic linemen brave 30-degree temperatures.
And somehow a cold, wet and miserable city survives what was surely one of the biggest challenges in human history.
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