Snow in Seattle made a rare paralyzing appearance, closing schools, creating power outages, and making transit through the area difficult.
The National Weather Service reported that one to four inches of snow fell across the Seattle metro area Monday morning, according to the Seattle Times. Seattle Public Schools and Bellevue Public Schools started later on Tuesday after dozens of schools closed on Monday.
"I was a little surprised they called it so early, but now that the temperature has dropped and I see that it is going to freeze," Michael Grindroz told KING-TV about the closure of Tahoma Schools Tuesday for the second straight day. "We did have issues with ice before."
Puget Sound Energy said nearly 90,000 customers lost power at one point, mostly concentrated outside of Seattle in East King County and Kitsap County, where heavy snowfall damaged power lines, according to the Times.
According to unofficial totals around the region up to 15 inches of snow fell in Frederickson, 11.5 inches in Bellevue, seven inches in Tacoma, 6.5 inches in Redmond, five inches West Seattle, and 3.7 inches at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported.
Washington State Trooper Rick Johnson told KING-TV that from Sunday and Monday, during a 24-hour time period, state patrol received nearly 600 calls for help in King County, most of those were weather related issues.
Seattle-Tacoma International Airport reported that dozens of flights were cancelled there, according to KOMO-TV. Alaska Airlines canceled 82 flights trying to leave Seattle on Monday, affecting 10,000 passengers.
Airport representative Bobbie Egan told KOMO-TV that some employees had trouble getting to the airport, and deicing planes caused delays.
"It's taking 30-45 minutes to deice a single plane, which is a significant issue to get planes out," Egan said Monday, noted KOMO-TV. "It's a messy scene and we apologize for that, but it's a severe event at Sea-Tac. If you don't have to travel today, please don't. Stay at home and we'll take care of you."
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