Edmonds residents used to being beeped into consciousness by their digital alarm clock awoke, instead, to quiet on Tuesday morning, Jan. 16.
The sound-deadening snow that blanketed the Puget Sound area was a sharp contrast to the windstorms that downed trees and upended garbage cans in mid-December and early January. Weather forecasters predicted the white stuff would be short lived and melt by mid-afternoon Tuesday, which turned out to be accurate.
A week’s worth of wintry conditions made it official: It’s been 10 years since Edmonds has seen this much ice and snow, according to Noel Miller, public works director. City sanding crews were working from 4 a.m. to midnight weekdays and 6 a.m.-6 p.m. weekends to keep streets, roads and other public areas cleared, he said.
It was a mixed blessing for those who ventured out on roadways Tuesday morning.
It came as no surprise to Meadowdale residents that some of the steep and shaded roads in the neighborhood were impassable due to ice-slicked surfaces.
The barricades on Puget Drive Tuesday morning more likely were due to a jack-knifed truck that tangled with power lines, according to a member of the public works crew.
Sleds replaced SUVs on streets such as Walnut and Pioneer Way, which are predictably impassable for most vehicles when coated with ice.
With the build-up of solid ice, it is unsafe for city trucks to sand some of the steeper residential streets so they were closed until the weather improves, Miller said. Those whose morning commute took them north and south on Highway 99 and eastbound on 196th Street found in some cases lighter-than-normal traffic. Twice-stung motorists, according to radio traffic reports, were out in greater numbers between the hours of 4:30-6:30 a.m. to give themselves ample time to get to work.
Adding to the relatively light traffic was the weather-related closure of most schools in South Snohomish County.
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