Winter weather gives plenty of tales to tell

The line of cars stretched along the northbound shoulder of Interstate 405 included a silver BMW, a red Toyota and a landscaping truck.

In a red 1997 Mustang convertible sat Namoo So, his seat reclined, his heater running.

That's where he had been for nearly 18 hours, from Monday afternoon until Tuesday morning. He was the only person still with his car in the line of more than two dozen vehicles parked along a steep downhill grade to Highway 522 near Bothell.

So's ordeal started about 4:30 p.m. Monday when he left his job as a computer-assisted designer for a Bellevue homebuilding company and started to his Mill Creek home.

"I didn't know it was going to snow," he said.

Near Kirkland, flakes started appearing. At the top of the hill on I-405 at Northeast 160th Street, the weather and traffic turned bad as the freeway drops down toward the 522 interchange.

At one point Monday night, the entire interchange was closed. So initially tried stopping his car in the northbound lane, well behind the traffic ahead of him.

"A cop came, and he was kind of yelling at me," because stopping in the moving traffic would be a sure way to completely jam the freeway, he said.

So eventually pulled off onto the right shoulder, where he sat all night and into the morning, watching the sun come up. He ran his engine to keep warm.

So's car was surrounded by abandoned vehicles.

A red Toyota with its hood and trunk open had a plaintive message scrawled on a slip of paper on the dashboard: "If you tow my car, please give me a call."

By Tuesday morning, the sun was shining, the temperature reached a cozy 24 degrees and state Department of Transportation trucks were spreading de-icing solvent along the roadway. Traffic was finally beginning to move.

A DOT employee, who gave his name as Pat, walked along the shoulder, checking abandoned and stalled vehicles.

As the sun moved higher in the sky, finally rising above a screen of evergreens that kept 405 in early-morning shade, the road surface started to thaw and snow and ice began turning to slush.

So got on his cellphone and called friends. "They're kind of stuck, too," he said.

Finally, at 10:46 a.m., he started the Mustang one more time, turned his wheels into traffic and pulled onto the freeway to complete the commute home he had started the day before.

— Peyton Whitely

Powerless but happy in Lake Cavanaugh

The road to Lake Cavanaugh, an idyllic community just east of Mount Vernon, is choked by 30 inches of snow and fallen trees. And its 70 or so year-round residents haven't had power since late Sunday.

For a reason unclear to residents, the phones still work. "It's absolutely beautiful up here," said Tom Olson, sounding remarkably cheerful. "The water is calm and flat. If it weren't for the power outage, it would be a beautiful place to be."

As Skagit County and Puget Sound Energy crews worked to clear the road, Olson, a former contractor, barreled through the clogged road in his old Ford Bronco to reach his house on Monday. Olson said his home and his pipes are fine, but he has not seen so many downed trees since settling there in 1972.

He and other homeowners are trading gasoline, generators and phone calls. When the generator is running, Olson said, he checks news reports on his satellite TV, which tell him power should be restored sometime today.

"Cavanaugh is in its own little world up here," he said.

— Jonathan Martin

Barista bundles up

for drive-through

Averie Garman donned her snowboarding outfit — scarf, down vest and long-sleeved sweater — for her early-morning shift at the Mojo Espresso drive-through stand in the Newport Heights shopping center. The scarf got in the way as she leaned out the tiny window to pass out the coffee, so she took that off.

A bigger problem, however, was that many customers couldn't open their car windows because they were frozen shut.

— Becky Bisbee

Shoulders become parking lots

In the Sahalee area of Redmond, Colleen Hixenbaugh reported more than 30 cars abandoned on the sides of roads. A number of recently planted saplings along side roads had been sheered off by wayward vehicles.

"One car was parked on the sidewalk outside Starbucks," Hixenbaugh said. "Its right rear was burned out and the fiberglass bumper melted onto the ground."

— Sherry Grindeland

Shoppers clear grocery-store shelves

Across the Puget Sound area, a shock wave of shoppers hit grocery stores, rapidly clearing away milk and bread in some locations.

The rush was fueled by school closings, the large numbers of workers who stayed home or received an unexpected day off — like 10,000-plus Microsoft employees — and icy road conditions that delayed delivery trucks.

At a Safeway store in Sammamish, many milk items and bread had been cleared from the shelves by mid-afternoon, according to a store manager.

"It's always a busy day when it snows. It's always been that way. It will always be that way," said Cherie Myers, spokeswoman for Pacific Northwest Safeway.

The run on food was particularly intense Tuesday, fueled perhaps by forecasts of another impending storm.

Snow taps a primal consumer instinct to stock up on food, even for unnecessary items, Myers said.

"I've gone to the store already today. I've done it, too," Myers confessed. "I got things I'm not even sure I need. But I have them and it sure makes me feel good."

Once home, she ended up with an abundance of milk, bread, eggs and hamburger.

— Michael Berens

Snowballs, sleds

and hearty meals

In Issaquah, dozens of families were playing and sledding in South Cove Park, said resident Hamilton McCulloh.

"The streets are like sheets of ice," he said. "Brought my kids back home for hot chocolate and turkey noodle soup and now they're watching 'Polar Express.' Nothing but fun in South Cove."

In Newcastle's China Creek neighborhood, residents were stewing hearty dishes for the traditional snow-day potluck, said Imelda Dulcich.

"God has a good sense of humor," Dulcich said. "Children home with closed schools just after five days of togetherness for Thanksgiving."

Her children, Henry and Maddie, spent Tuesday outdoors sliding down the driveway, building snow forts, preparing for a snowball fight and throwing their wet clothes in the dryer.

"I'm sitting by the fire with the biography of Jimmy Stewart and passing them mugs of cocoa," Dulcich said.

Neighbors in the Broadmoore Estates area of Sammamish welcomed the snow Monday night with an impromptu sledding party — mostly for the adults, said Jenny Jensen.

"The kids couldn't believe we weren't going inside," she said. "We went sledding down our hill until 10 p.m."

— Sherry Grindeland

Deliveries stalled

at many Starbucks

About 200 Starbucks stores in the Puget Sound area missed their deliveries of milk, sandwiches, pastries and salads on Tuesday morning because of unsafe driving conditions.

Some baristas made milk runs to local grocery stores to keep their customers in lattes, a spokesman said. The stores were scheduled to get their deliveries Tuesday evening.

— Melissa Allison

A campout on chairs

at Boeing office

Even Boeing executives were trapped by the cold. Late Monday evening, Jim Schlueter, head of communications for the Commercial Airplanes division, gave up entirely on the idea of making it home to Issaquah from his Longacres office.

After spending the night on chairs in the office, Schlueter showed up early Tuesday at the Boeing plant in Everett for the ceremonial delivery of two new jets to Singapore Airlines.

— Dominic Gates

Gregoire caught in

5-hour traffic jam

High political office offered no protection from the storm.

Gov. Christine Gregoire and her husband, Mike, spent more than five hours in Monday's post-Seahawks game traffic snarl. The Gregoires — traveling with two State Patrol officers — didn't get home to Olympia until about 2:30 a.m. Tuesday.

"She was in it just like everybody else," said Mark Brogan, a State Patrol officer who was with Gregoire at the game but went home in a separate car. "Great game, but we all paid for it."

Gregoire had to be back up in SeaTac for a meeting that started at 8:30 a.m.

— Ralph Thomas