by guest blogger Jamie Holter

I love snow storms in Puget Sound.

Food Supply in the EOC

I love being in the stinky Emergency Operations Center in Shoreline with a flat of Costco muffins, Pirate Booty and satsumas.

Charlies Angels radio in the EOC

I love watching four news channels over different parts of the snow storm. Our maintenance crews planning their attack on snowy and icy roads, overheard on the
world’s oldest Charlie’s Angels two-way radio.  I love taking calls from staff reporting for duty who say, “When do you need me, just let me know.” 

Monitoring television coverage

Our Emergency Operations Center had been active since Saturday.  A storm manager on with King County, the National Weather Service and doing interviews; a traffic engineer tracking cameras and collisions, another person who’s tracking collisions just involving buses and large trucks . Those vehicles that cause the biggest problems.  Everyone is at the top of their game, except for the moments when they are mugging for the camera.

The traffic management center, the nerve center for operations in Puget Sound, has more staff tracking traffic, putting up information on overhead signs, talking with crews in the field and dispatching teams to trees down, icy spots on the roads or helping State Patrol.

Staff Monitoring Twitter

Then, of course, the public information corner: the kings of @wsdot_traffic. Their clever and informative tweets retweeted to thousands…when they aren’t putting together videos and taking pictures of our workers. They tell me they love their job. I know they do.

Snow and ice is always scary and I’m proud that my job involves helping people stay on top of road and weather conditions even if we’re just stuck in a building and not on the roads like our Highway Heroes who do the heavy lifting. The folks I work with are top-notch, dedicated public servants. We can’t make Mother Nature change course, but we are here to help you get where you

Crews on roadway

need to go when she’s busy breaking Seattle snow records.

by guest blogger Noel Brady

Glen Palacio and Kirk Whalen

Two contractor crewmen on I-90 were the right guys in the right place Thursday, May 5, when they ran to help a motorist having a heart attack in morning rush hour. Gary Merlino Construction workers Kirk Whalen and Glen Palacios likely saved the man’s life because they knew exactly what to do and didn’t skip a beat, according to the State Patrol.

They were working on a storm drain in the freeway median about 8:30 a.m., when they saw a green Toyota Corolla hit a Jersey barrier on Mercer Island. They found the driver unconscious and immediately pulled him out of the car. When they lost the man’s pulse, Whalen positioned him and cleared his airway; while Palacios started chest compressions. Both were trained and certified in CPR – Whalen as an EMT and Palacio as a U.S. Air Force firefighter.

"I heard him kind of breathing, but it was more of a gurgle," Whalen told the Seattle Times after paramedics rushed the man to Overlake Hospital in Bellevue, where he was stable Friday afternoon.

Merlino Project Engineer Patrick Hafferty said the driver was lucky that two people as well trained as Whalen and Palacios were at the scene and ready to help. Merlino requires foreman to have company-provided first-aid certification, but it’s not uncommon for laborers like Whalen to obtain emergency and medical training outside of work.

“These guys are kinda local heroes here,” Hafferty said. “I don’t think they thought twice about it. That’s exactly what our company is all about – going above and beyond what’s expected.”

Safety is always a priority, said Bryant Bullamore, our project engineer for the I-90 Two-Way Transit and HOV Operations Project, which Whalen and Palacio were working on at the time. But it’s hard to anticipate something like this. “These guys deserve a lot of respect, not just for running to help, but for knowing what to do and never hesitating.”

What to do was never a question, Palacio said. "If you are trained and have the opportunity to use that training, why not if it's going to save a life?"