Commute Becomes Adventure
Toby McAuliffe’s two-hour drive home Tuesday night from his Valley office to his Indian Trail home on Spokane’s North Side repeatedly forced him to dodge fallen trees and power lines.
Like most evening commuters, he did it in the dark.
Weather and road conditions don’t promise to get any better in the region today.
On Tuesday, when motorists weren’t trying to avoid debris as a result of the severe ice storm, they had to deal with power outages that knocked out traffic lights.
“It felt like a scene out of the movie ‘Independence Day,”’ McAuliffe said.
As McAuliffe drove home to 5219 W. Russett, the only lights around him were those from his truck and the hazy blue glow from live wires lying on the ground and roads.
“The closer and closer I got to home the darker it got,” he said. “But the fluorescent blue from the wires just kept getting brighter. It was eerie.”
He finally got home to a cold, pitch-black house where he had to aim the lights of his truck through a garage door leading to the kitchen to find some matches to light candles.
It’s a story many Inland Northwest drivers can relate to today.
Shortly after 3 p.m., Spokane County Fire District No. 9 issued a warning to motorists in north Spokane County and all of Stevens County to avoid the roads because of fallen power lines and downed trees.
Drivers were being told to steer as far away as possible from downed lines to avoid the powerful current.
As of late Tuesday, however, all state routes and Interstate 90 remained open.
In Spokane, broken tree branches littered the road on southbound Ash Street between Gordon Ave. and Northwest Blvd. at 2:30 p.m.
Motorists weaved through the debris in single file. The string of cars looked like a mile-long metallic snake traveling at 30 mph.
On the 200 block of East Indiana between Lidgerwood and Ruby, city worker Kelly Brauhn tried to remove a large section of a tree that blocked the right lane of westbound traffic on Indiana.
“There’s at least 3 inches of snow on most of these trees and an inch of frozen rain to go along with that,” Brauhn said.
“Add that up and it’s a lot of weight for these trees to hold. And many of them still have leaves on them, making them heavier,” Brauhn said.
He was able to remove most of the tree before rush-hour started. However, more branches littered the street just hours later.
While workers tried to clear streets, traffic crews were operating traffic lights at major intersections with generators.
There are still many side streets that city and county crews won’t be able to clear of debris until later in the week. Roads and highways were expected to freeze overnight which will make for dangerous road conditions for morning commuters. Drivers are asked to begin their morning commutes at least 30 minutes early.
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