Whenever snowflakes begin to fall, any longtime Seattle-area resident gets a twitch: Is this going to be like the Big One we didn’t expect?
There have been quite a few of those, and long-timers, we’d like to hear your stories about them. Here’s mine:
The blizzard of December 1990 reduced freeways to parking lots and dumped more than a foot of snow in downtown Seattle. It left more than 1,200 Seattle kids stuck in their schools overnight. And it stranded me alone downtown, a shivering 14-year-old in the days before cellphones.
“The going-home nightmare” started in the early afternoon. As the snowflakes got fatter and fatter, I began my daily Metro bus journey from Holy Names Academy on Capitol Hill to downtown Seattle, where I usually transferred to a second bus that would take me out to my Issaquah home. It took an hour or so, most days.
Except the first bus never arrived on Capitol Hill. I set out for the 2.5-mile walk downtown in my penny loafers, slipping and sliding down treacherously slick hills. When I hit Sixth Avenue, the sliding overtook all else, so I finally sat down on my book bag (thankfully, this was also in the days before kids had laptop computers) and careened down block after block.
Buses were still running when I finally reached Second Avenue, but none were stopping. They were stuffed with passengers who’d all had the same thought: Time to get out of town. Finally, the flow of buses petered out and darkness fell.
I struggled back up Madison Street to a McDonald’s on First Hill, wishing I had cash to buy dinner. I did have a quarter, which I used to call home and beg for a ride. The storm hadn’t reached our house on Squak Mountain yet, and my mother was surprised that I’d need rescuing, but Snowmageddon had snarled Seattle’s roads beyond belief.
I waited inside a hotel lobby, soaked and hungry. Someone took pity and gave me a Hershey bar. Hours later, my mom finally showed up and told me to walk with her, because my dad hadn’t been able to get the car through the gridlocked traffic to the hotel. We trudged up yet another hill and into the car, did battle with traffic, and finally pulled into our driveway at 2 a.m. — somewhere around 12 hours after my journey had begun.
That’s my Seattle snow memory. Now it’s your turn. Share your memories of epic Seattle snowfalls by end of day Wednesday in the form below.