2012 Snowstorm Hits Snohomish County

This week has been a total weather mess in Western Washington. It started for us in Snohomish County on Monday morning, light snow accumulated quickly to a few inches. It got worse each day, by Wednesday I had over 10" of snow at my house. The driving conditions in rural Snhomish County were terrible, with compact snow and ice making for difficult commutes.

On Tuesday I drove around and got a few decent photos of the snow around Eastern Snohomish County- here are some of my favorites (click for larger size):

Residential Fire in Granite Falls. 11-22-2011

Tuesday night shortly after 10pm our district was toned out to a residential fire on Prospect Ave in Granite Falls. When units arrived they found the residence fully involved and approached it as a defensive fire. It appeared that all occupants were out of the structure. I shot a few minutes of video and grabbed some photos as well. I tried to stream it live via "twitcaster" but the quality is pretty poor due to the crappy 3G we have out here- here is what it looked like:

Thinking if I kill the audio when I broadcast to the twitcaster it might improve the performance (less freezes). 

Granite Falls Truck Bypass Route Opens

The Granite Falls truck bypass road finally opened to traffic today after about a year and a half of construction. The county and city had a few dignitaries make speeches followed by a little ribbon cutting ceremony.

I'm anxious to see how the new route changes the traffic dynamics around Granite Falls. I'm happy that the project is finally completed, it was a dirty, nasty mess for months when they were doing the work. It's going to take a while for people to get used to the new roundabouts. I'm hoping folks figure it out quickly rather than stop when there is no traffic, or get into the roundabout and come to a stop before exiting.. these things apparently are confusing to some drivers and can actually slow down traffic rather than improve it!

Snohomish County's hovercraft- Stillaguamish river rescue

A boat that had what was reported a crew of 4 people on it got into some kind of trouble this afternoon on the Stillaguamish river outside of Granite Falls. Whatever occurred left on of the occupants stranded on a sandbar. Within a half hour or so the Snohomish County Hovercraft was on scene to pick the guy up. I grabbed a few photos from the Jordan Road bridge that crosses the Stillaguamish.

In just a few minutes they had the guy off the sandbar and back near Riverscene park off Jordan Road. It's not the first time these hovercraft have been out this way, a couple years ago during heavy flooding these guys were all over the place rescuing people stranded in their homes surrounded by floodwater. Handy piece of hardware to have around these unpredictable rivers!

first snow of the season, not much, but enough to make a mess

Woke up to some light snow sunday, amounted to about 2-3" but combined with the super cold temperatures we have been having it made the roads pretty ugly around here. I-5 near Stanwood was a mess with probably 15-20 cars involved in accidents. Took a quick drive to survey the situation:

As the day went on the snow stopped falling, but the roads around Granite Falls remained pretty slick. Grabbed some video of the roads and snow around the area:

Not sure if we have more coming, I love snow but it pretty much kills the ability to get around out where I live. It takes the road crews a while to get out this way, making it pretty much 4x4 only if you want to drive with confidence.