SEATTLE – The thrill and disappointment of the Seahawks’ run to the Super Bowl, a crime of stunning savagery that shattered a Seattle morning, and an autumn of drenching and destructive weather led the news in Washington state in 2006.
Editors of the state’s daily newspapers voted the Seahawks’ first trip to the big game the top story of the year, perhaps because fan anger over the refereeing in Seattle’s 21-20 loss kept the game freshly painful well into the baseball season.
“We knew it was going to be tough going up against the Pittsburgh Steelers,” coach Mike Holmgren told fans when the team returned to Seattle. “I didn’t know we were going to have to play the guys in the striped shirts as well.”
A disaffected loner’s rampage through the early morning remnant of a Seattle rave party on March 25 placed second. Kyle Huff, 28, gunned down six people in a house on Seattle’s Capitol Hill before he was confronted by a police officer and shot himself to death.
Some of the victims had invited Huff to their house in the Capitol Hill area of Seattle after the rave. No motive was found for the crime, which struck at the heart of the city’s accepting and fun-loving rave subculture.
A report by an expert on mass murders, James Alan Fox of Northeastern University, found that Huff’s life was a series of frustrations, from his parents’ divorce to his poor grades, his difficulty relating to women and his envy of his more successful brother.
“There’s no answer,” said Kyle Moore, father of 14-year-old victim Melissa Moore. “We’ll never know.”
November’s record rainfall ranked third in the vote.
In November, rain and later snow drenched Seattle to a depth of 15.63 inches, nearly triple the average precipitation for the month, washing away the old record for wettest month, 15.33 inches set in December 1933. Records also fell in Olympia, Hoquiam and Vancouver. But the wettest November in the state was in Forks, where 29.28 inches of rain fell, far short of the 41.70-inch record set in January 1953.
In fourth place was The Boeing Co.’s banner year for commercial airplane sales. Capitalizing on a series of setbacks for rival Airbus, Boeing was set to surpass the European company in airplane orders for the first time since 2000.
Stung by higher fuel prices, airlines were abandoning Airbus widebody airliners for Boeing’s more efficient 777 and upcoming 787 “Dreamliner.” Boeing also landed its first order for a 747 passenger jet in four years.
Boeing warned in July that the 787 was facing weight problems and supplier delays but insisted the program was on budget. Since then, the company has announced $635 million in additional spending to pare the excess weight while – so far – maintaining its mid-2008 schedule for entry into service, with the first flight promised next year.
Most of the state’s editors cast their votes before the worst windstorm in more than a decade tore through the region in mid-December, but it still ranked fifth overall. The storm knocked out power for more than a million people – thousands were left cold and dark for more than a week – and eventually left more than a dozen dead from drowning, falling trees, or carbon monoxide poisoning brought on by attempts to stay warm by bringing generators and barbecues inside.
The rest of the Top 10 stories:
6. Federal designation of nearly all of Washington’s inland marine waters – about 2,500 square miles – as critical habitat for endangered orcas. The Nov. 28 decision means federal agencies must now consult with the National Marine Fisheries Service to make sure their actions will not harm the whales’ habitat. Eighteen military sites covering nearly 112 square miles of orca habitat have been excluded from the critical habitat area.
7. The Washington Supreme Court’s divided and contentious decision to uphold the state’s ban on gay marriage. In a 5-4 decision, the court said lawmakers have the power to restrict marriage to a man and a woman, and left intact the state’s 1998 Defense of Marriage Act. Lower courts had ruled that the ban violated the constitutional rights of 19 gay and lesbian couples who sued to overturn the law.
8. The shootings at the Jewish Federation of Seattle. Authorities say Naveed Haq stormed into the federation’s offices, declaring himself a Muslim angry at the United States’ support of Israel, stormed into the center and opened fire, killing one woman and wounding five. In December, King County Prosecuting Attorney Norm Maleng elected not to seek the death penalty against Haq, citing his long history of mental illness.
9. The death of disgraced ex-Spokane Mayor Jim West. West, a longtime Republican lawmaker, opposed gay-rights bills but was recalled from office over an Internet gay sex scandal. He died in July of complications from cancer surgery. He was 55.
10. Billionaire Warren Buffett’s announcement that he would give most of his money to the Bill &Melinda Gates Foundation in annual installments worth about $1.5 billion. Buffett’s generosity, announced June 26, comes with the condition that the foundation a distribute his entire donation each year, which will effectively double the dollar amount of grants the foundation makes. Bill Gates said the money would be used to seek cures for the world’s worst diseases and improve American education.
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