When I say I can’t fathom conditions on the Gulf Coast, I mean it. Trite but true, I can only imagine the ruin, squalor, grief and so many bleak futures.
When I try to relate to families huddled in shelters, subsisting on bottled water, canned food and scant hope, almost nothing hits home. It is so far beyond my experience, I can’t even say I have an inkling.
What I have is a memory, a snip of hardship, shared by thousands of others in Snohomish County.
Remember?
It was Jan. 20, 1993, notable because it was Inauguration Day. As viewers gathered around TV screens to watch Bill Clinton being sworn in as the 42nd president of the United States, a massive windstorm swept through Western Washington.
The storm killed five people, among them a Lynnwood man whose car was crushed by an uprooted tree.
Wild winds measured 67 mph at Paine Field in Everett, with gusts of 94 mph at Hood Canal. Bob Drewel, Snohomish County executive at the time, and then-Gov. Mike Lowry declared a state of emergency in the county and state to hasten repair funds.
By the end of that Inauguration Day, few of us had seen Clinton take office. About 750,000 people around the region had no power, 150,000 of them Snohomish County PUD customers, including the four of us at my house.
Our power was out for three days. Obviously, there’s no real comparison between that inconvenience and the misery wrought by Hurricane Katrina.
Yet as I see mothers and babies hunkered down, waiting and waiting, in arenas, broken houses and gymnasiums, thoughts of that cold January return.
Our kids were 6 and 10. They were in school, which had heat and lights. That left nights and early mornings to worry about. What I remember most is worry – even though we had our home, our jobs, each other, instant cocoa, peanut butter and bananas, and plenty of cash.
On Jan. 23, 1993, several Herald writers shared post-storm experiences in the newspaper.
Photographer Michael O’Leary had a tree on his Lynnwood roof. In Edmonds, reporter Jim Haley cooked outside on a camp stove and had to bathe in cold water.
In Mill Creek, columnist Kristi O’Harran went out for pizza, found no batteries in the stores and slept in a sleeping bag. I was dispirited driving home in Everett past well-lit homes into a two-block sea of darkness.
We went out for Chinese food and stayed late drinking tea. At home, we got everybody into sweats and piled the entire family into our bed. The kids slept soundly, but we were up past midnight, uncomfortably reading by flashlight in the icy gloom.
Area hotels were full, calls to the PUD were answered with busy signals, and each day I became grumpier and more impatient. What was taking them so long?
Tuesday, I read an Associated Press article that mentioned, in one barely noticeable line amid paragraphs of dreadful description, that Gulf Coast residents may be waiting eight weeks for electricity – without their homes, without their jobs and so many without family members.
I spent a couple of freezing midnights. I fretted about the kids. But our kids were sleeping peacefully, hogging all the space in their parents’ bed.
Now, whenever windstorms start howling, I hate the sound. I get scared. We have flashlights and food and warm clothes. I get scared anyway. A dozen years later, I dread being stuck in the cold and dark again.
Take those few days of discomfort, multiply them by a billion or so, then take away everything you ever had. The sum will still be unfathomable.
Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.
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