Fatality in Seattle, Washington

[RickI]

My condolences go out to this man's family and friends on his passing.

Little information is currently available about the specifics of this accident. It would be very helpful to learn more in an effort to try to avoid more repetition. If you can provide information, please PM ricki or email flkitesurfer (at) hotmail.com.

FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

[RickI]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/335991_wind19.html

Wind knocks out power for thousands
Kite boarder dies after gust hits Lake Washington

Last updated October 18, 2007 10:55 p.m. PT

By KATHY MULADY, CASEY MCNERTHNEY AND LEVI PULKKINEN
P-I REPORTERS

The first big storm of the season blew into Seattle on Thursday with a punch that knocked out power to more than 280,000 residences and businesses throughout the Puget Sound region beginning midafternoon.

It also led to the death of a Lake Washington kite boarder, sent a Kent woman to the hospital after she was hit by a tree, broke a half-million dollar sculpture at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and forced cancellation of ferry runs.

All in a couple of hours.

At the height of the outages, as many as 50,000 Seattle City Light customers were without power. At 9:30 p.m., 11,500 were still in the dark.

"We have hundreds of lines down now," City Light spokesman Scott Thomsen said Thursday evening. "A lot of what we are encountering is trees that have fallen over, or branches that have broken off, falling down into the lines and causing damage to the system."

Power was out in many areas of City Light's service area. Crews were expected to be working through the night.

As the wind whipped, sometimes over 50 mph, emergency crews responded to a flood of calls. The highest reported gust was 62 mph in Spanaway, and the wind forced the closure of the Hood Canal Bridge for nearly three hours, starting at 4:30 p.m.

One of the most serious emergency calls came at 5:30 p.m. from a Lake Washington kite boarder who watched as another boarder was dragged north by the gusting wind.

A Seattle police patrol boat found the 44-year-old boarder floating face down about half a mile from the Kirkland marina, Officer Jeff Kappel said. When rescuers pulled the Seattle man from the water he was unresponsive and not breathing.

Police aboard the Harbor Patrol boat performed CPR on the man, as did medics who rushed him to Harborview Medical Center. Fire Department spokeswoman Helen Fitzpatrick said the man did not regain consciousness on the trip to the hospital.

Stowing his gear at Magnuson Park just before sundown, kite boarder Larry Breuer said the thoughts and prayers of the rest of the boarders were with the victim and his family.

Breuer, who's been in the sport nearly a year, was one of a number of boarders out on Lake Washington as the wind picked up Thursday afternoon. He said sustained wind speeds were not particularly severe, but that some gusts might have topped 40 mph.

"When you're out there, you're one with the environment," Breuer said.

The environment also took a toll in Kent, where Fire Department Capt. Kyle Ohashi said a woman standing near her car in the Kent Station shopping center parking lot just after 2 p.m. was hit by the top of a cottonwood tree that snapped off in the high wind. She was unable to talk and was taken to the hospital, he said.

Strong gusts also tore off the top half a 55-foot tall sculpture at the Fred Hutchinson center's main campus near South Lake Union, just after 2:30 p.m. The glass and steel sculpture called "Vessel" reportedly cost about $500,000 and was paid for by a private donor. It was still under construction.

The artist, Ed Carpenter, lives in Portland and has been contacted, said Christi Losa, a spokeswoman for the research center. No one was injured.

With only a few exceptions, the state's ferry runs were unaffected.

A captain on the 3 p.m. route from Seattle to Bainbridge Island came on the boat's public address system, asking people not to go on the deck, where wind gusts reached 60 mph. Puget Sound waters had white caps, and the wind blew water across the deck in a constant spray. Foot-ferry service was temporarily halted on the Fauntleroy-Vashon-Southworth run, mostly because of power outages at the dock.

Seattle Public Schools said any buildings without power Friday morning will be closed for the day.

Closures will be announced on TV, radio and the district's Web site, seattleschools.org.

The city of Seattle activated its emergency operations center in response to the first windstorm of the season to take reports of power outages.

The two biggest areas without power Thursday were near South Spokane Street in South Seattle and in North Seattle around Northeast 125th Street. About 4,500 customers were without power in those areas.

There were other reports of outages in West Seattle near Fauntleroy Way Southwest, most of Burien and near Northgate. About a dozen young trees toppled along Western Avenue downtown.

In the Maple Valley area, a live power line fell on a Cedar River Middle School bus loaded with about 40 children on state Route 169, a Tahoma School District spokesman said. The children were not injured. They were able to walk off the bus and many called their parents on cell phones to be picked up.

By 3:30 p.m., Puget Sound Energy had reports of scattered outages in Thurston, Pierce and east King counties, with a total of about 150,000 customers without power at one time or another during the storm.

By 9 p.m., 68,000 of those customers had power restored. Snohomish PUD reported 85,000 customers without power at the peak.

The National Weather Service said the wind should die down today, with the weather returning to typical fall showers.

"It is more or less what we expected all along," meteorologist Chris Burke said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. P-I reporter Kathy Mulady can be reached at 206-448-8029

© 1998-2007 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[RickI]

Additional information appears at:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... rm19m.html


One weather forecast from the day before, Wednesday on the Weather Underground was:

Thursday
Rain in the morning...then showers in the afternoon. Windy. Highs in the upper 40s to mid 50s. Southeast wind 20 to 25 mph shifting to the south 25 to 35 mph with gusts to 50 mph in the afternoon.

and one from the Seattle NWS from early Thursday:


Warning Description: High Wind Watch

Warning Date: 7:29 am PDT on October 17, 2007

WarningSum:...A Strong Pacific Weather System May Bring Strong Winds To Much
Of Western Washington On Thursday...

Warning Message:...High wind watch in effect from Thursday morning through Thursday evening...
The National Weather Service in Seattle has issued a high wind
watch...which is in effect from Thursday morning through Thursday
evening for most of the western Washington interior.
The potential exists for a hazardous high wind event. A high wind
watch means sustained winds of at least 30 to 40 mph with gusts to
60 mph may occur...but is not yet certain.

Continued at: http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:xqR ... ent=safari

[Toby]

my condolences to the family and friends. Another sad loss.
It would be good to get more info if possible, why he did not release etc.

I can only advice people to not only check forecasts like windfinder and windguru, since they don't forecast gusts. http://www.weatheronline.co.uk does it for example. Always check a site like this as well, so if you see that strong forecasts are predicted, expect them to come, and even better: don't go out with forecasts like this. That's how I do it, then I rather stay at home.

[marina]

sincere condolences to the Washington and NW communities as well as this man's family and friends. Please be careful out there and if going out in extreme conditions, consider the merits of a helmet and impact vest.

[Wetstuff]

Toby: Weatheronline is Eurocentric ..well done, but nothing for us.

I keep scratching my head everytime I hear of one of these deaths?! Even the most simple, 30second radio forecast says storms are coming. We are not in the 1400's where weather is forecast by phases of the Moon.

..and he didn't pass anything: he's dead. We can't even talk straight about it... or address responsibility for going out in gusts to 50.

It's too bad he didn't learn from a kiter who preceded him.

j i m

[YngvaiMalmsteve]

I live here in the Northwest very close to Lake Washington. The kiting community is very close here and very sad about this event. I did not personally know the guy but I do know kiters who did know him.

I chose not to go out based on the forecast yesterday. I'm glad I didn't. I have set myself a rule now that I won't go out if winds are gusting beyond 35 mph.

[RickI]

A bunch of guys went out in this. Only one died, that we've heard about. Hopefully more looked at the forecast and conditions, thought about it and passed on going out into the storm. Not everyone dies in extreme weather events and yet everyone who goes out in them is volunteering for the chance to be killed.

It is fairly easy to boost huge in 25 mph with today's kites. WHY would people elect to go out in winds violently gusting to 50 and even 60 mph? For big air?

Helmets and impact vests are good things and can do some good in critical conditions. If you are foolish enough to set yourself up for a lofting in which you burn in at 50 mph into a house, car or tree, these simple aids may not help enough.

Would you sail in a small boat intentionally into a hurricane, hang gliding into a supercell storm, intentionally drive into white out conditions in an active avalanche area, sit in your car and wait for a large tornado to overtake you?

Some hazards are more obvious than others. Taking them seriously can be harder for some and yet no so hard for others.

If you want to go out into this crap, use a windsurfer. That third dimension or a terminal tangling and high speed dragging through the water with a kite could wreck your day. In the meantime, history repeats itself and MORE seasonal violent weather is likely on the way.

FKA, Inc.

transcribed by:
Rick Iossi

[Tom183]

Gusts kill - it's that simple.

It's easy to forget that gusts up to 40 can become gusts over 50 with zero warning - and a kite that works in 30mph avg can kill you in gusts over 50.

I agree that we're not honest with ourselves about these incidents - surviving kitesurfing in bad weather is like surviving Everest in bad weather: pure luck, regardless of how well prepared/equipped/experienced you are.

The only real survival skill is having enough impulse control to stay out of that situation - a skill this group of riders didn't have...

[chemosavi]

Sorry to hear, condolences to all concerned. The wind up here was insane yesterday. The water didn't even have caps most of the day because the direction would shift 180 degrees from one minute to the next. I thought to myself, I hope nobody tries to go K'ing in this weather.