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Eric Pawtowski
152 followers|51,667 views
Eric Pawtowski
Shared privately - 11:57 AM
Might as well go over the fallen-cable issue that happened at the storage unit during NWC move-in yesterday.
As most people reading this probably know, yesterday is main move-in for Norwescon. Daniel posed a picture of the rental truck when we picked it up, mostly for the amusement value of what was parked next to it (see his post from yesterday). It normally takes multiple trips in the truck to get everything from the two main storage units (in Seatac, just west of the airport) to the NWC hotel (just east of the airport).
The first load was delivered without incident. Went back for the second load at around 2:30, we could see a storm coming in from the west and was hoping to have the art forms loaded before it arrived. It was me driving the truck with Yvonne and Bill each driving a car full of volunteers (Daniel stayed at the hotel). Found the entrance gate to the storage unit blocked off by traffic cones and caution tape. As the cones left insufficient room left for the truck to get off the road, I stayed with it in the center turn lane while Yvonne went in to the office. Found out that an open-topped truck with an unsecured load left the storage unit a bit after we had left and snagged an overhead cable. Apparently 509 was closed briefly, but re-opened when it was determined to not be a threat to the road. It was, however, hanging about five feet off the ground directly over the storage unit's vehicle gate (once Yvonne radioed me about the problem I could see the cable). It was a Comcast cable (i.e. not a power line), but all overhead lines have to be treated carefully, so the gate was closed (while a car could theoretically could have driven under it, it could have fallen to the ground at any time, so I don't blame the Public Storage people for closing the gate completely.
They were allowing people to park in the tiny rental office lot and access the storage facility through the pedestrian gate, but that would not work for us- the truck was too big for that lot. They had called utilities for assistance, the estimate for a service truck was between four and six. Waiting that long would severely cripple convention move-in. So, new plan: That location was origionally a Surgard storage center adjacent to a Public Storage facility. Public Storage bought out Surgard some time ago and they had merged offices, but the storage areas themselves were separate, each with their own gate. No way for vehicles to get between them. When the buyout happened, they closed one office and put in an interior sidewalk connecting the formerly separate facilities so one office could service both. They let the truck into the other gate (our code only works the gate for our half of the split facility). By this time I had gotten out of the truck to check things out on foot, Bill had parked the car and got into the truck (did not want to leave it in the middle of 509 with no driver) so he parked it, on the other half, reasonably close to the connecting sidewalk. So, we could load, but the truck was a few hundred yards from either storage unit instead of adjacent to it. And, of course, by this time, the storm had arrived.
So, we started loading as best we could. Public Storage apparently has rules for when a facility is partially closed for a safety issue; they are allowed to let people in by alternate means, but they have a 'one cart only' rule; they are only supposed to use a single cart. The office lady interpreted this in our favor, deciding that while we could could only use one of Public Storage's orange pushcarts, we were free to use as many of our own carts as we wanted (her actual line was "Oh, you guys are Norwescon. Of course you have your own carts". Did not realize we had a rep with them). Unfortunately we only had one full-sized bus cart with us (the rest were at the hotel) and three hand trucks, although we pressed the two A/V carts into service hauling light stuff.
The strong people used the hand trucks to carry art forms (three at a time; while a hand truck is capable of carrying as many as five, more than three were impossible to manage without spilling). The weaker people used the bus cart, PS cart, and A/V carts to move light stuff. Since the art forms had to be loaded first (they have to go up against the back of the truck) and it was pouring down rain we were putting water-sensitive light stuff under the truck to keep it dry. Three of the volunteers were high school students, one of who was wearing a t-shirt, another a tank top and were getting quite cold and wet (it was sunny when we'd left) dug a poncho out of the cars for the t-shirted one, gave the tank-top one my sweatshirt and put another poncho on myself.
Shortly afterwards Daniel and another carload of people from the hotel showed up (I'd been updating him by phone, the storage unit is out range of the radio repeater Ops sets up at the hotel). That speed things up (and he brought my coat), at that point I switched to marshalling at the unit, Daniel marshalling at the truck (underneath the truck ran out of room so he rigged a tarp as a cover between the truck and the adjacent storage building for more dry area) and Bill helping out along the middle. VERY glad we had con radios that work in local mode, as the truck and unit we too far apart to co-ordinate by voice. Almost all of the art forms were loaded when Comcast showed up at 4:30, it took them less than ten minutes to fix the cable, at which point the gate was working (If I'd known it was going to be that fast I'd have not tried to load everything this way). So we piled the stuff under the truck/tarp into it, Yvonne took a carload of the extra volunteers who had other jobs back to the hotel, pulled the truck around and loaded the rest of it from the normal location. Ended up at the hotel at around 5:45, I'd estimate the fallen cable cost us about two hours (and a lot more volunteer time than normal).
Many thanks to everyone who pitched in and helped out.
Help · Region
Privacy · Terms · Maps Terms
Eric Pawtowski
152 followers|51,667 views
Eric Pawtowski
Shared privately - 11:57 AM
Might as well go over the fallen-cable issue that happened at the storage unit during NWC move-in yesterday.
As most people reading this probably know, yesterday is main move-in for Norwescon. Daniel posed a picture of the rental truck when we picked it up, mostly for the amusement value of what was parked next to it (see his post from yesterday). It normally takes multiple trips in the truck to get everything from the two main storage units (in Seatac, just west of the airport) to the NWC hotel (just east of the airport).
The first load was delivered without incident. Went back for the second load at around 2:30, we could see a storm coming in from the west and was hoping to have the art forms loaded before it arrived. It was me driving the truck with Yvonne and Bill each driving a car full of volunteers (Daniel stayed at the hotel). Found the entrance gate to the storage unit blocked off by traffic cones and caution tape. As the cones left insufficient room left for the truck to get off the road, I stayed with it in the center turn lane while Yvonne went in to the office. Found out that an open-topped truck with an unsecured load left the storage unit a bit after we had left and snagged an overhead cable. Apparently 509 was closed briefly, but re-opened when it was determined to not be a threat to the road. It was, however, hanging about five feet off the ground directly over the storage unit's vehicle gate (once Yvonne radioed me about the problem I could see the cable). It was a Comcast cable (i.e. not a power line), but all overhead lines have to be treated carefully, so the gate was closed (while a car could theoretically could have driven under it, it could have fallen to the ground at any time, so I don't blame the Public Storage people for closing the gate completely.
They were allowing people to park in the tiny rental office lot and access the storage facility through the pedestrian gate, but that would not work for us- the truck was too big for that lot. They had called utilities for assistance, the estimate for a service truck was between four and six. Waiting that long would severely cripple convention move-in. So, new plan: That location was origionally a Surgard storage center adjacent to a Public Storage facility. Public Storage bought out Surgard some time ago and they had merged offices, but the storage areas themselves were separate, each with their own gate. No way for vehicles to get between them. When the buyout happened, they closed one office and put in an interior sidewalk connecting the formerly separate facilities so one office could service both. They let the truck into the other gate (our code only works the gate for our half of the split facility). By this time I had gotten out of the truck to check things out on foot, Bill had parked the car and got into the truck (did not want to leave it in the middle of 509 with no driver) so he parked it, on the other half, reasonably close to the connecting sidewalk. So, we could load, but the truck was a few hundred yards from either storage unit instead of adjacent to it. And, of course, by this time, the storm had arrived.
So, we started loading as best we could. Public Storage apparently has rules for when a facility is partially closed for a safety issue; they are allowed to let people in by alternate means, but they have a 'one cart only' rule; they are only supposed to use a single cart. The office lady interpreted this in our favor, deciding that while we could could only use one of Public Storage's orange pushcarts, we were free to use as many of our own carts as we wanted (her actual line was "Oh, you guys are Norwescon. Of course you have your own carts". Did not realize we had a rep with them). Unfortunately we only had one full-sized bus cart with us (the rest were at the hotel) and three hand trucks, although we pressed the two A/V carts into service hauling light stuff.
The strong people used the hand trucks to carry art forms (three at a time; while a hand truck is capable of carrying as many as five, more than three were impossible to manage without spilling). The weaker people used the bus cart, PS cart, and A/V carts to move light stuff. Since the art forms had to be loaded first (they have to go up against the back of the truck) and it was pouring down rain we were putting water-sensitive light stuff under the truck to keep it dry. Three of the volunteers were high school students, one of who was wearing a t-shirt, another a tank top and were getting quite cold and wet (it was sunny when we'd left) dug a poncho out of the cars for the t-shirted one, gave the tank-top one my sweatshirt and put another poncho on myself.
Shortly afterwards Daniel and another carload of people from the hotel showed up (I'd been updating him by phone, the storage unit is out range of the radio repeater Ops sets up at the hotel). That speed things up (and he brought my coat), at that point I switched to marshalling at the unit, Daniel marshalling at the truck (underneath the truck ran out of room so he rigged a tarp as a cover between the truck and the adjacent storage building for more dry area) and Bill helping out along the middle. VERY glad we had con radios that work in local mode, as the truck and unit we too far apart to co-ordinate by voice. Almost all of the art forms were loaded when Comcast showed up at 4:30, it took them less than ten minutes to fix the cable, at which point the gate was working (If I'd known it was going to be that fast I'd have not tried to load everything this way). So we piled the stuff under the truck/tarp into it, Yvonne took a carload of the extra volunteers who had other jobs back to the hotel, pulled the truck around and loaded the rest of it from the normal location. Ended up at the hotel at around 5:45, I'd estimate the fallen cable cost us about two hours (and a lot more volunteer time than normal).
Many thanks to everyone who pitched in and helped out.