The combination of Monday’s snow followed by extremely low temps (our thermometer showed a low of 20 F overnight) with the knockout punch of some serious winds had a major impact on the Burien area, damaging waterfront homes, closing schools, plunging residents into darkness and much more.

(People like to name major storms, and since it started on Nov. 22nd, we’re proposing we call it the JFK Assassination Anniversary Storm. Others have tagged it snOMG. We’ll let you decide.)

We know there are many other problems in the area (email us pics and/or a blurb if you know of any), but here are some of the things we noticed:

• The combination of the wind and high tides took a major toll on waterfront homes on the north beaches of Three Tree Point. BTB Reader Kumi sent us this email:

I live on the water and this is the worst storm damage since 1990. We are talking about failed bulkheads, massive erosion, and debris everywhere. My neighbors 100-foot long seawall is leaning over, sewer pipes broken open, and the waves are still pounding away.  Besides the inflated property taxes there is always an extra price to pay living on the front lines of nature.  A neighbor friend of ours down the beach just had their windows professionally cleaned a few days ago, now they look like they are covered in sea snot.  Got to love mother nature.

• Three Tree Point residents Dane Johnson and Kathy Justin, known for spearheading the Burien Interim Art Space project and more (read about them here), had their house red-tagged due to the storm. Tuesday morning several friends, neighbors and strangers who read our call for help showed up to help haul their valuables out of the house, which is leaning towards the water (see Scott Schaefer’s pics below).
• Highline School District closed all their schools Tuesday, after first announcing a two-hour delay late Monday afternoon.
• Power went out in various parts of B-Town, with a major outage in the Three Tree Point neighborhood. At the satellite home office of the blog, we lost power just after 6pm Monday night, and didn’t get it back until around 8am Tuesday morning. This meant a night of burning firewood we so wisely bought last week, warm layers, lots of cuddling with the kids, and re-awakenings to re-stoke the fire. All in all we survived interior temps that dropped to 50 (we’re in an older house), and were ever-so-thankful when the lights went back on.
• Highline Community College closed its campus as well Tuesday.
• Metro Transit released a statement “urging people to stay home and off the roads if at all possible. Road conditions are dangerously icy, and abandoned vehicles still block roadways. About 14 Metro bus routes have been canceled this morning due to the travel conditions.” Just before Noon Tuesday they released this statement (more info here):

Route 121 and 131 are not operating on 1 Av S between SW 156 St & Marine View Dr in both directions. Use stops along Des Moines Memorial Dr or 8 Av S. Routes 121 & 131 are instead continuing eastbound on S 156 St,  southbound on Des Moines Memorial Dr, southbound on 8 Av S. eastbound on S 200 St, southbound on Desmoines Way Dr to its regular snow route  – Same route in reverse direction.  This is in addition to other reroutes that these two routes are on. Metro encourages anyone who can to avoid travel on Tuesday until conditions improve and jurisdictions can clear streets.  Thank you for your patience and for using Metro’s services. Travel safely.

• The Weather Service is predicting an overnight low of just 14 degrees Tuesday night. This is two degrees lower than the all-time record for the day of 16, set in 1985. The lowest recorded temperature on any date in Seattle was 0 degrees, on January 30, 1951.

Here are some pics of the storm damage that we’ve managed to find so far (again, email us yours if you have any):

Photo of damage to the waterfront of the north beach at Three Tree Point by Hal Middleton.

Photo of damage to the waterfront of the north beach at Three Tree Point by Hal Middleton.

Photo of damage to the waterfront of the north beach at Three Tree Point by Hal Middleton.

The City of Burien red-tagged Dane Johnson & Kathy Justin's home early Tuesday morning.

You can see why – the foundation of the house has slipped and it's leaning toward the water.

Apparently the rough seas eroded underneath the house, weakening the foundation.

Closeup view of the main entryway shows the damage done to the foundation by the storm.

An even closer view shows the gap between the house and foundation.

The view from the beach shows just how beat up the house was from Monday night's storm.

Photos by Scott Schaefer

A windstorm with winds gusting up to 50mph caused numerous power outages across the Burien area Monday night.

The outages initially left more than 18,000 City Light customers without power, and aside from B-Town, some of the largest outages were found in West Seattle and the Rainier Valley.

Power was restored (at least to us) around 5am Tuesday morning, and Seattle City Light says that by 1am power had been restored to about half the customers who were initially affected.

Seattle City Light experienced multiple outages throughout its service territory, starting about 9:30pm Monday night (Nov. 15th), when a strong weather front moved through the area, bringing sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph and gusts of 50 mph. With many leaves still on the trees, those winds brought branches into contact with power lines, creating outages.

According to City Light, as of 9am Tuesday, Nov. 16th, it looks like there’s only one remaining outage in the Burien area, affecting some 134 customers, with a projected restoration time of 1:10pm today; to see a “live” map of outages, click here:

[EDITOR'S NOTE: One reason it took us until 9am Tuesday morning to post this was because we too were victims of the outage.]

UPDATE 4/2/10 @ 5pm: Seattle City Light says that their repair crews restored power about 3:30pm to 3,700 homes and businesses in Burien and unincorporated King County that were affected by an outage caused by a spring wind storm.

As we reported earlier, the outage occurred about 2:20 p.m.

The general boundaries were South 96th Street on the north, SW 175th Street on the south, 24th Ave South on the west, and 33rd Ave SW on the east. Not all customers within those boundaries were affected.

According to City Light, the outage was caused by a falling tree coming into contact with power lines in the high winds.

When it was first reported, City Light said that crews “expected to have power fully restored about 8pm.” They obviously beat that deadline.

Winds also caused numerous outages in several other areas of City Light’s territory, including about 2,900 homes and businesses in Lake Forest Park that were affected by – you guessed it – a tree blown over by high winds into power lines.

Seattle City Light had 14 crews ready to respond to outages related to overhead power lines throughout the day.

Starting around 11:30am Monday morning (Dec. 29th), we’ve noticed numerous major wind gusts blowing all sorts of loose garbage and recycling all around Burien.

We don’t remember reading any Weather Advisories on this, so we just checked the NOAA Weather website for live conditions at Sea-Tac Airport, and here’s what we found:

WIND GUSTS UP TO 43 MPH!

Here’s a screenshot from the website:

And here’s a live feed from a webcam at the airport – if there’s no image, or if the airplanes in the image are on their sides, that means the wind gusts are even worse (refresh the page to see the latest image):

The good news from this sudden windstorm?

Kiteboarding’s up at 3 Tree Point!

Please either email us your windstorm pics or add ‘em to our Flickr Group so we can share them!