This year’s exercise consisted of two separate mock scenarios focusing on police and fire response. The first scenario centered around a flight that was ‘seized’ by a hostage taker. Police responded with appropriate tactics to practice techniques and procedures.

Volunteers were outfitted with theater makeup to represent a variety of injuries in an attempt to test medical care triage, treatment, and transport practices and procedures.

Port Police and Fire Departments lead each scenario response which included dozens of King County area mutual aid police and fire agencies. An estimated 50-75 pieces of equipment from fire engines to aid cars and up to 175 fire fighters were scheduled to participate, as well as police officers and SWAT teams. Additional first responders from the Port included Sea-Tac Airport Security, Airport Operations, Public Information and the Port Environmental team.

Following the exercise, a comprehensive report will be prepared post-exercise to identify any gaps in emergency planning and prioritize follow-up corrective actions.

Photographer Francis Zera was also on hand, and he created the following Sound Slideshow (make sure your speakers are turned on):

Click to Play Francis Zera’s Sound Slideshow

Click to Play Francis Zera’s Slideshow

According to a Port of Seattle press release:

With international travel increasing more rapidly than domestic travel, The Port of Seattle rolled out the welcome mat to another new international airline service Thursday as Condor Airlines made its debut at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with their inaugural flight from Seattle to Frankfurt. The blue, yellow and white aircraft, a Boeing 767-300, arrived to a water turret salute with the pilots waving flags from Germany and the U.S. Shortly after the arrival and a celebration at the gate, a full plane load of passengers pulled back for the inaugural flight to Frankfurt.

“This new airline service will generate local jobs, provide more choices for travelers from Seattle to Europe, and provides capacity for air cargo between Seattle and Europe,” said Mike Ehl, Director of Operations at Sea-Tac Airport. “We welcome Condor Airlines as part of our growth in international traffic.”

Through April of this year, international passenger traffic through Sea-Tac has increased 6.7% over the same period in 2010. This summer Sea-Tac expects to see 23% more seats to Europe overall, compared to the same period last summer (July-September). It amounts to almost 2,000 seats per week during the summer months.

Condor Airlines will provide two flights a week, departing on Mondays at 7:20 p.m. and Thursdays at 6:05 p.m. arriving in Frankfurt, respectively, at 2:50 p.m. and 1:30 p.m. local time. Condor will fly Boeing 767-300ER aircraft with three classes of service including Comfort Class, Premium Economy Class and Economy.

Condor will provide easy U.S. domestic connections with Alaska Airlines.

The Port of Seattle Fire Department honored the inaugural arrival and departure of Condor’s flights with a traditional water salute from the ARFF vehicles.

Condor’s announcement adds to previously announced expansions to international service for 2011 at Sea-Tac.

Seven new international services have been added at Sea-Tac since 2007: Air France (2007 to Paris), Lufthansa (2008 to Frankfurt), Hainan (2008 to Beijing), Icelandair (2009 to Reykjavik), Delta (2010 to Osaka and Beijing) and Condor (2011 to Frankfurt). In addition, this year Delta added a second daily flight to Amsterdam in June and Icelandair added a sixth weekly flight to Reykjavik in May.

With estimates from 40 to over 50 participants, this year’s Polar Bear Plunge at Three Tree Point in Burien was the largest yet.

When all the splashing and shivering was over, The B-Town Blog’s own Bart Bryan walked away with the annual Polar Bear trophy and a commitment to splash in again next year.

We’ll have a full video — including footage from our exclusive, waterproof “Polar Bear Plunge POV” cam — coming soon. In the mean time, photographer Michael Brunk was on the scene and snapped these photos:

Click to Play the Slideshow

Dane Johnson & Kathy Justin accepting the city of Burien's Community Leader Award in 2009.

As we first reported last week, a waterfront home belonging to prolific Burien artists Dane Johnson and Kathy Justin was severely damaged on the morning of Tuesday, Nov. 23rd, after a horrendous overnight storm battered the house so hard it got dislodged from its foundation.

Numerous neighbors, friends and even strangers who saw our urgent, online call for help responded quickly, helping the couple rescue and move belongings from the condemned house up steep, slick stairs to safety.

Dane and Kathy were not injured, but they lost their house, which now sits broken and vacant on the north beach of Three Tree Point, tipping towards the water and ready for demolition, or, perhaps…recovery? No one really knows for sure yet, but the city’s dreaded red tag of doom anoints the upper staircase.

Several other bulkheads in the area were damaged as well by the storm, which had gusts up to 40mph as well as a possible storm surge. Some reports are that up to six feet of beach was eroded overnight by the high waves, which relentlessly battered everything they hit.

A Dane and Kathy Disaster Fund has been set up, with a Facebook Page that has info on how to donate.

We managed to get a hold of the couple between their hectic new (and hopefully temporary) lifestyle of trying to find a new place to live, track their belongings and just get through typical day-to-day life after living through a major, personal disaster.

Here’s our exclusive Question and Answer with them about surviving their “personal Katrina”:

How long had you lived at that house?

A little over a decade.

Did you ever feel endangered in it prior to this storm?

No, most wind storms have come in from the south and have never been anywhere close to this big.

What was it like the night of the storm?

We lost power about 5pm the previous day (Monday, Nov. 22nd) and we were camping out in the living room trying to keep warm. The wind storm got progressively worse throughout the evening. At about 5:30am in the morning the breakwater broke and the house shifted and broke the gas line. From that point on it was our focus to get the gas off and to remove as many personally functional and sentimental items as we could.

Did you ever feel in danger during the storm?

We have been through many big storms in the past and did not really feel in danger, but the increased winds and direction of this one really made this one different.

After you knew something was seriously wrong, what did you do?

We called 911 for the fire department and tried to put out the fire in the fireplace because I was unable to turn the gas off.

Do you have insurance? Will it cover this?

We are insured, as of this moment our insurer has not let us know if they will be covering this incident. We have been told it could take a few weeks before they make a judgment, until then we are on our own.

A lot of friends and neighbors showed up to help move stuff – did you get everything out?

We got most items out that had personal and sentimental value, the larger easily replaced items were left for last and most of those did not make it. The house was deemed too unsafe at that point.

What do you think of the people who showed up to help?

The support of the Burien community, our friends and those who responded to the various media stories was overwhelming. At one point there was a fire line from the house all the way to the street moving our stuff out which is about a 15 story climb. Other people arranged a storage facility (the only one that was open) and arranged to transport most of our salvaged items to that 10×30 locker.

We are still in shock and awestruck over the amount of support we received Tuesday.

Have you ever been through anything like this before?

I’ve been in an earthquake in another location where we had several days to evacuate but never in a situation where we had just a couple of hours to gather our wits and belongings.  We are very thankful to everyone who helped us.

A fund has been created (Facebook Page here) – what do you guys need?=

We appreciate all of the support we have received already and are coming to realize how long and expensive this process will be, espescially since we are still unsure of our insurance claim status. The fund that was set up for us by friends (see the Facebook Page here) was a surprise but we are now very thankful it is there considering what is ahead of us.

Where are you staying now?

We were in a hotel that the Red Cross organized for us but are currently in a neighbors guest apartment. It is very nice and makes us feel alot more human. We are working on a longer term solution. A challenge when you still have to pay your mortgage, but we are hopefull that something very positive will workout.

What’s going to happen to the house?

We do not know nor can we speculate. We are currently in limbo waiting for insurance as I know several other homeowners on the beach are too.  We are not the only casualty of the storm and many of our neighbors are also dealing with the outcome of the wind storm.

What kinds of things have people done to help you? (I might do another story on people donating/helping you out if there’s enough for one).

Number one , help us get most of our stuff out, organized a location for it to go to and got it there. So much was going on that day and we were/are both in shock, there is no way we could have lead that evacuation so efficiently.

People have been making calls on our behalf to try and give us directions to concentrate on, the Army Corp of engineers, and the City of Burien while we try to make progress with Allstate. Others have helped us find a clean, dry and pleasant place to stay for a few days while we get our feet back under us and others have brought us warm home cooked food.

We still do not have a total grasp on how many people and who all helped us, Kathy and I are both suffering from mild colds and shock.  We think and seem to have an never ending list of must-do’s but we are healthy and together and just flat out amazed at our community. We feel we can not express our thanks enough. Thank You to everyone who helped us.

Any other thoughts?

We just want to thank everyone again for the tremendous amount of help on Tuesday and for their ongoing support including the Burien businesses like Mick Kelly’s Irish Pub, Burien Press, The Mark and Elliott Bay Brewery who have helped us with our sanity by keeping us fed while we were in shock.

The effect of this event has many sides but witnessing the community come out and support not only us but our neighbors has been incredible.

It made us realize over this holiday weekend all that we can be thankful for.

Following is a Sound Slideshow Produced by Scott Schaefer of damage done to the house, using photos shot by Todd Gardiner (© 2010, used with permission), and one of the house in its normal state courtesy Guy Harper, set to the melodramatic 1906 public domain song “Home Sweet Home” by Irving Gillette (be sure your speakers are turned up):

Click to Play Sound Slideshow

Tuesday morning (Oct. 26th) at 11:30am, numerous workers, families, and community members marched into the Burien branches of Chase Bank and Bank of America to protest their demands to freeze foreclosures in all 50 states.

The protest, organized by Washington CAN, a community activist group, is part of a national campaign in more than 25 states to “hold banks accountable for the corrupt and fraudulent procedures they used to foreclose homes,” according to a statement. Dozens of other actions are scheduled in the coming weeks.

According to a statement from Washington CAN:

The demonstration came amidst recent news that banks have admitted to fraudulently foreclosing on nearly 40,000 homeowners every month without proving they had a legal right to foreclose on the homes. Meanwhile, bankers are expected to pay themselves $144 billion this year in bonuses and compensation.

“South King County has been hard hit by the housing crisis, with 1 in 4 homeowners underwater, meaning they owe more on their homes than their homes are worth,” they said in a press release.

During the action Gina Owens, a Washington CAN member, shared the story of a family who has an underwater mortgage through Chase: “Joselita’s family is struggling to choose between paying medical bills and their mortgage payments. Chase refuses to help them. And we know she is not alone. Her story is one of so many!”

After requests from the group, the branch manager refused to call Phyllis Campbell, the Chairman for Pacific Northwest JP Morgan Chase. Washington CAN! organizers called on their own, and left a message with Campbell, that she responses to their demands within a week.

Homeowners can also demand that their bank produce a mortgage note as proof that it owns loan and has the right to collect payment by visiting www.WheresTheNote.com.

Photographer Nicholas Johnson was on hand as well, and he captured this Sound Slideshow – be sure to turn your speakers up:

Click to Play the Slideshow

Last week, 2008 Highline High School graduate and University of Washington student Carly Henley, 20, was found dead at a fraternity house, the victim of suicide.

On Friday night (Oct. 8th), hundreds – possibly thousands – of people gathered at the Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity house near the UW, filling the street and adjacent yards with candlelight in remembrance of this talented, attractive young musician. According to comments made on Facebook, people lit candles all over the world, whether or not they had known her.

Nearly everyone brought a candle, and some brought extra for those without. Blue and pink ribbon pins were passed around, as well as fliers commemorating Carly’s life. Many women wore colorful headbands, something Carly was known to do herself.

Many of our Readers knew Carly. Several knew of her, perhaps as classmates, acquaintances, or fans of her YouTube Channel. Here’s her obituary as published in The Seattle Times:

Carly Danielle HENLEY
Carly Danielle Henley, 20 years old, of Seattle, passed on Wednesday, October 6, 2010. Born on July 30, 1990 in Long Beach, California to Dede Henley Norris and Dr. David Henley. A loving sister to sister, Blake Henley, and brothers, Bryce Henley, Spencer Norris, Christopher Norris and Jeremy Hunley. Cherished by extended family Steven Norris, grandmothers, Charlotte Dolezal and Mim Henley, adored by her uncles, Doug Dolezal, David Dolezal, Mike (Theresa) Henley and Mark Henley, aunts Denise (Tim) Wilcox, Kathleen Milne and many cousins. She attended Highline High School and was a junior at the University of Washington and a member of the Delta Gamma Sorority. She had a passion for music and was an accomplished singer songwriter who performed her original songs and garnered legions of admirers locally and via YouTube and the Internet. Carly’s beautiful smile, loving, kind nature, filled the hearts of all who came in contact with her. She was constantly seeking new experiences and ideas, a friend to many, ever giving of herself unselfishly. She loved the rain. She loved her family. She loved God. A Celebration of her life will be held on Sunday, October 10 at 3:00 pm in The City Church, University District Campus located at 4740 17th Ave NE in Seattle. Remembrances may be made in Carly’s name to The Hunger Project at www.thp.org.

Photographer Nicholas Johnson took pics at the vigil, and the following Sound Slideshow includes those, set to music recorded on the scene of some of her sorority sisters singing the Leonard Cohen song “Hallelujah.” Other pics in this slideshow include pics of Carly by Photographer Kinsey Gross, and pics of a local makeshift graffiti memorial shot by Scott Schaefer in Burien’s Three Tree Point neighborhood (be sure your speakers are turned on):

Click to Play Our Sound Slideshow Tribute to Carly Henley

Read our previous coverage:

• Memorial Open Mic For Carly Henley At Infusion Tea & Coffee Oct. 23rd
• UPDATE: Highline High Grad Carly Henley Died From Hanging; Vigil Friday

He’s gone through the results and pulled some of his favorite shots taken over the last two months and put together a slide show set to peaceful ambient audio recorded at Des Moines Beach Park.

So lean back, adjust your audio and take a few moments to relax with these images of Des Moines after dark!

Tip: When the slideshow is running, you can click the little icon of four arrows (just above the “credits” link) and the slideshow will go full screen.

Click to Play Michael Brunk’s Photo Slideshow

The days are getting longer, the sky brighter, flowers are starting to bloom, bugs are coming out and its Photo Friday – what better way to celebrate the coming days of Spring than by celebrating with a stunning “Springtime In Burien” photo slideshow by area Pro Photographer Francis Zera?

This set of amazing macro nature photos is Exhibit A in why we love Photography – through the eye of a talented artist like Francis, one can see things that you normally might not notice, and see it in a beautiful new way.

According to Francis, who shot these pics Wednesday:

Today’s brief spell of late-afternoon sunshine got me thinking about spring, and I had an opportunity to wander around a private garden on the east side of Burien.

The plants and trees were just starting to bloom, and I found some pretty interesting stuff, including this insect that was swimming around in a dewdrop that was poised on a new tulip leaf.

This little guy appears to be a Hypera zoilus Kaldari, aka Clover Leaf Weevil, swimming in a dewdrop. According to the Wikipedia entry, they seem to prefer dry places to wet, so I’m thinking it might have been simply unlucky enough to have been nailed by a big raindrop and subsequently trapped inside the droplet by the surface tension.

It was still alive when I photographed it, and was moving around within the confines of the droplet.

For those technically inclined, I was using a Canon 5D Mark II with a 180mm f/3.2 macro lens.

Here’s Francis’ stunning spring slideshow:

Click to View Francis Zera’s Photo Slideshow

Francis Zera is a professional architectural and commercial photographer, as well as Co-president, Seattle/Northwest chapter, American Society of Media Photographers. See his portfolio at http://www.zeraphoto.com or follow him on Twitter here: http://www.twitter.com/zeraphoto. Francis can be reached at 206-659-ZERA.

On the busy 12400 block of Ambaum Blvd., a quiet, makeshift memorial stands as a tribute to Mikarah Nasabreo Sanders, the 15-year old girl who was shot and killed by her 16-year old boyfriend on New Year’s Eve, who later shot himself.

Sadly, Sanders died from her wounds and the male suspect is still being treated (and guarded) at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle (read our previous coverage here). King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg has said that the suspect will likely be charged as an adult with murder in connection with Sanders’ death.

The most recent reports we’ve heard are that the suspect was upset with something he read on Sanders’ MySpace page. Other reports say that the couple argued frequently.

Like most temporary memorials, this one’s got photos protected by plastic sleeves, melted candles and notes, as well as some odd and ironic items like a mysterious, open, black umbrella (we’re not sure of its significance – anyone know? UPDATE: Occam’s Razor called and told us that it was probably placed there to protect the shrine from rain), and an empty peach vodka bottle lying next to stuffed animals – all as a tribute to a life lost way too early.

Scott Schaefer stopped by Thursday morning (Jan. 7th) and shot this Photo Slideshow:

Click to View Scott Schaefer’s Photo Slideshow

On a personal note, we’re getting kinda tired of seeing these memorials all around the Burien area. Let’s get along peeps!

On Halloween (Saturday, Oct. 31st), the annual “Boo In Burien” took place, where children went trick or treating from business to business, dogs (and kids) in costumes paraded, and wiener dogs raced against each other.

This year’s event was sponsored by Discover Burien, Prudential Northwest and Grocery Outlet.

The B-Town Blog was there of course, and Photographer Michael Brunk captured these photos:

Click to View Michael Brunk’s Photo Slideshow

If you see yourself (or your dog or child) and want to download a FREE high-res version of the photo suitable for printing or emailing, click here and browse the photos on Flickr. Once you find something you like, download it by clicking on “All Sizes” just above the image, then right-click and “Save As” the JPEG in whatever size you prefer (Large and Original are best for printing).