The island has been through a lot this last week and a half, and some lessons are clear: how much we rely on one another for one, and how lucky we are to have a preparedness organization — and one that includes Rick Wallace — for another.
It was heartening to see people in good spirits standing in long lines and helping one another out, something that store owners also commented on. At Thriftway, manager Tim Marsh said people were in good spirits, even when waiting well back in the beer aisle to be rung up. And at Ace on Sunday afternoon, manager Kevin Linnell said the store’s card reader had been down for awhile, and he had seen neighbors paying for one another in cash and offering each other rides. Additionally, several people volunteered to help the food bank move food for its weekly distribution and assist with deliveries to homebound people.
While that community approach to storm-related transportation was heartwarming, we very much noticed the lack of bus service for four days running. That is a long time for a community to go without any public transportation, especially when some people’s own vehicles are unsafe for road conditions. On Monday afternoon, King County Metro’s Jeff Switzer said the Emergency Snow Network it had implemented included only core areas and high ridership routes. He called it a “temporary situation that Metro does not want to be in.”
He wondered — as do we — if the Community Vans could be pressed into service should something like the recent storms happen again soon. Obviously, no one would want the van to be on unsafe streets, but for much of the recent days, the highway up and down the length of the island was in good condition, thanks to the road crews. Switzer said Metro is taking lessons from this situation and intends to learn from them, and we are hopeful that even limited public transportation might be available on the island in a future storm.
The recent days have been filled with dazzling beauty and plenty of opportunity for snow lovers to sled, ski and gaze out the window at the new landscape. But they were also hard days for many — those who expected a plow might come to their neighborhood after a foot of snow, for example, people without water and households without power well into Monday — and then again Tuesday. Through it all we appreciated, and we know many others did too, the work of Rick Wallace, who provided clear information about power, schools and the latest twists in the forecast as the head of the Emergency Operations Center team. He had company from that group of people solving problems in the storm, sometimes invisible to the rest of us, including working to restore power for Gold Beach’s water supply so that 200 people did not run out of water. The island is lucky to have an organization that steps up in an emergency or stressful event, has relationships with people in the right places to solve problems, and communicates clearly to the community along the way. Wallace was the public face of that team in these recent days, and we extend to him — and all the people who helped friends, neighbors and strangers get through the storm — a heartfelt thanks.
