Seattle and Bad Weather

Seattle's reaction to bad weather is a lot like the way those born and bred here perceive the overall lifestyle of the city. Given the incredibly pleasant conditions of just about everything, there's usually a huge misunderstanding of what life is like elsewhere. Just like Seattle natives aren't as vocal about the city's incredible variety of culture and its comparatively progressive politics as transplants tend to be, the city itself is almost comically ill-equipped for any kind of unpleasant weather.

The event that inspired this article was a blackout that occurred in my neighborhood after literally a single lightning strike at the beginning of what had to have been the shortest storm I'd ever witnessed. I walked into my apartment after a trip to a local convenience store and the weather outside at the time was fairly typical to autumn in Seattle. It was overcast, ineffectually drizzling and unobtrusively brisk. Not more than a minute after I shut my door, lightning flashed outside (a rarity in this town to begin with) and a torrential downpour hit my street for all of fifteen seconds before dying back down to the occasional sky-drip. Apparently, that single bolt of lightning hit a vital power line because my entire street was blacked out for over two hours.

I grew up in the Midwest, so this whole situation was hilarious to me. It was like an in-flight meal version of a storm. One bolt of lightning, a few seconds of honest rain and a localized black-out. In my home state of Ohio, the capital of ridiculous weather, two of the four seasons were monopolized by storms. High winds, relentless thunder and thick, malicious rain were standard issue in spring and summer. Sure, we'd lose power now and then, but it took a heck of a lot more than a tossed-off shock from an errant nimbus to do it.

I had a similar laugh last winter when the entire city effectively shut down due to a bout of real winter weather. Whole hills were closed because of ice and I heard locals talk about being trapped inside their homes for three whole days as if some sort of epic blizzard had buried them. On the same day a city bus almost tumbled off a bridge for the city's lack of road salt, I trudged up Capitol Hill to the grocery store. Those of us who chose Seattle as an escape from that kind of nasty climate can't help but remember what winter is like every single year in cities with less generous temperaments.

Still, I find this constant unpreparedness for even mildly unpleasant weather kind of endearing in my city. Most of the time it feels like the town itself holds the very seasons to a higher standard in the same way it looks down on bad coffee and expects a certain degree of esoteric literacy in its inhabitants. Seattle is a fortunate city in many ways and I appreciate the innocence that engenders, even if it means the slightest hint of a storm will knock the grid into a shambles.