A freak bout of thunder and lightning rolled across Seattle early Tuesday morning with wind gusts and rain that left thousands without power but the lights stayed on across central Seattle and even the gusty wind apparently caused no damage in the Central District. Over the weekend, the area was deluged by what city meteorologists are calling a “30-year” storm — details on that, below.

The National Weather Service put out this short term advisory last night as the storm hit around 12:30 AM:

A STRONG LINE OF SHOWERS AND ISOLATED THUNDERSTORMS ASSOCIATED WITH A STRONG COLD FRONT WILL PRODUCE BRIEF SOUTHWEST WIND GUSTS TO 55 MPH AS IT PASSES.

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Seattle City Light says that more than 8,000 were without power in the city, none in central Seattle:

An estimated 8,500 customers lost power in several scattered neighborhoods including Northgate, Lichton Springs, Pinehurst, White Center and Burien. About 12:30 a.m. a thunderstorm rolled through the area causing lightening and gusts of high winds. Crews are being called in from home to start repairs. There is no estimate on the time of restoration.

Forecast calls for lighter rain to continue through the weekend.

Meanwhile, city measurements of the Pineapple Express weekend storm are in and they’re impressive — some parts of the city were hit with more rain in a 24-hour period than has been seen in Seattle in 100 years. For the CD and the rest of the central city, it was only marginally less impressive — a 30-year storm. You can see rainfall totals mapped on this plotting provided by Seattle Public Utilities. Over 3 inches for the CD this weekend. And quite a bit more to come, to be sure — but, like normal, this rain will be spread out over the next, sigh, seven months.

Greetings neighbors, we’d like to thank all of those who attended the Leschi Community Council’s Annual Holiday Party at the Central Area Senior Center on Saturday, Dec. 4.  We had an overwhelming turnout with a large representation from the Leschi Elementary PTA and the Baker Learning Center.  The Leschi Elementary choir performed a selection of Christmas carols that brought smiles to our faces and warmth to our hearts!  The student choir opened the festivities and many, along with their families, stayed through the evening.  There was a wonderful selection of food for sharing as well as a raffle with local prizes, quilt making and a violinist. 

Thank you again for making this such a fun-filled evening full of bonding with one another.  We look forward to seeing you all for other events in our area.

this is the first chance ive had to post this but on sunday between 12:10-12:25 there was someone laying in the park being tended to…any idea what this was or could have been or what happened?

Here are a couple of pice of the lake dell slide. Still completely blocked as of 3 pm

The sidewalk maintenance along Union St. from MLK up to 34th has been making steady progress despite the wintry weather of the last month. Some of the repaving is already complete along the south sidewalk, and last week a large tree on the 3100 block was removed to begin sidewalk restoration.

According to Liz Ellis, the Program Coordinator for SDOT Bridging the Gap Sidewalk Safety Repair, her crew is also working on a problem spot at 29th and Cherry (shown in the photo here) where a tree has been identified for removal due to decay in the trunk. That removal is expected to happen this week in the hopes of repairing the Cherry St. stretch in time for the Christmas holiday.

There are a few other trees that may need to come out along Union as the sidewalk restoration process continues – we’ll keep you up to date on that news as we hear about it.

SDOT was forced to close a stretch of Lake Dell Avenue Sunday due to concerns about hillside slippage following this weekend’s heavy rains. Lake Dell between addresses 175 and  265 was closed Sunday as SDOT planned to reevaluate the area Monday morning.

This image from the Seattle Municipal Archives shows a home along Lake Dell Avenue that was heavily damaged in a 1933 slide.

A man on the 48 bus at 23rd and Jackson on Friday afternoon reported that a group of teenagers had stolen his iPhone.

The victim told police that the group of about 7 got on the bus near Garfield High School and robbed him as the bus arrived at 23rd and Jackson around 4:45 PM. The victim said he was on the bus with his phone out when one of the teens approached him from behind, grabbed the phone and jumped out the door of the bus with the rest of the group. The victim told police he used a service that might allow him to track the phone’s location.

According to police radio reports, officers believed they were familiar with at least one member of the group and were on the lookout for him following the bus robbery. An officer contacted one group found nearby while another officer called the stolen phone’s number but no ringing could be heard.

Two years ago this month, the Twilight Exit was moving out of their digs at 22nd and Madison to 25th and Cherry, across the street from Garfield High School and Community Center. There were some brief hiccups in the move, but the bar ended up signing a good neighbor contract with the school and neighbors have embraced the bar. And according to owner Stephan Mollmann, business is up.

“Business is better here than it was at the old location,” said Mollmann, “and we’re doing it with just about half the square footage.” Of course, it’s not exactly the same place.

For example, the Cherry location sells more food than the Madison location did.

“It used to be, ‘I own a bar,'” said Mollmann. Now, he tells people he owns a restaurant and lounge. In one sign of the restaurant and lounge’s success, it made its final payment December 1 and is now officially debt-free, he said. Though Twilight Exit still do battle with the Citibanks of the world every now and then.

The Twilight is a CDNews advertiser.

The Twilight crowd has also gotten a little less young and raucous, though many patrons are still younger. The Twilight still gets a lot of Seattle University students, he said, motioning to the big group of students near the back of the bar by the shuffleboard table. Because of that, Mollmann says they have to be extra vigilant about checking IDs.

Moving forward, Mollmann has both big and small changes in mind. He is currently working on allowing minors in the Twilight for brunch. He said he gets asked all the time by people with kids if they can bring them, but it’s currently not allowed. He has to make a few changes to the space, like creating more separation between the bar and seating area. Also, the health department frowns on having a shuffleboard table in a dining area?

In big plans, Mollmann said he would love to open a vegetarian bistro of sorts that would serve what he described as “the opposite of what we serve here.” He hopes it could go in on 23rd some day, an area he said has incredible unused potential (we wrote about a stalled project there a few days ago). But any further plans may have to wait a bit. Mollmann is about to have his hands full of issues that go well beyond checking IDs, shuffleboard and brunch. A child is on the way, he tells CDNews, due in the early spring.

CDNews reader MT sends us this report of an attempted break-in at his house while he was home Saturday:

My partner and I own a home in Mad Valley, and I just wanted to give you a heads up that we had an attempted break-in yesterday, at 12:15pm in the 200 block of 32nd avenue E.  The perp smashed through our rear sliding glass door- I was home, but downstairs.  I came running up at the sound, and scared him away.  Apparently the EXACT same thing happened to our neighbor down the street the day before and she was home too.  (That info was from the police, I have not had a chance to talk to her yet)  The guy was young, 5’8″-5’10″ish, average build, light skinned (white/hispanic/asian?) wearing a faded black hoodie with the hood up.

We’ll keep an eye out for the police report on the other nearby house and will let you know the details there too.

A person crossing Union at 21st Ave was struck by a car on this rainy Sunday afternoon just before 1 PM. At this time, we have no information about the victim or the extent of injuries but can confirm that the injuries were first reported as serious and that the victim was transported to the hospital for treatment.

Union was closed for about 30 minutes while emergency crews and police responded to the scene. There were no radio calls made to ask for special units to test the driver for impairment. We’ll follow up with Seattle Fire to see if we can find out more about the victim’s condition.

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