Originally Posted by
noglider
The river is about a mile and a half wide!
Wide enough to land a plane, I've heard.....
No commute this week. Out of town Mon thru Wed. Thu it poured rain. Today, the plan was to telecommute for two hours, then ride in, work the rest of the day from my office downtown, and run some shopping errands on the way home. Any given Friday. Until.... about 45 minutes into my telecommute, the router kept resetting. Finally stayed stable for about five minutes, then all the power went out. It was this:
This on a day with mid-90s F, heat indexes around 110F. Power plant is about six blocks from here. "Mechanical failure" caused an explosion and huge fire in the substation. About a half-hour later, another explosion and fire in a substation near the UW campus. This was shot from an apartment building at the end of my block; you can see both fires:
Power was out through most of downtown, including my building. So no point in riding in. Traffic was a complete cluster; bicyclists were the only ones with any mobility. Battened down a few things house-related, then I grabbed the jump-box out of my truck, connected an inverter, plugged in my DSL router and my work tablet and was back on the clock.
The Isthmus MUP, the main artery for non-motor commuting on this side of town (busiest non-motor thoroughfare in the state), runs right past this facility. I imagine the morning's bike commuters got an eyeful. Fortunately not on my commute route for Monday. Knock wood, Monday's commute will be routine....