Seattle Times

Two homes in Bellevue have been evacuated because of a mudslide in the 500 block of West Lake Sammamish Parkway Southeast.

Another two homes were in the path of the mudslide but were vacant, said Bellevue fire officials.

A section of the parkway, from Northeast 2nd Place to Southeast 26th Street, has been closed while repair crews work to fix a broken water main, which is being looked at as the possible cause.

“We don’t know if the mudslide caused the water main break or if the water main break caused the mudslide,” said Bellevue Utilities Deputy Director Mike Jackman. A small section of a gas line also was ruptured, he said.

No injuries were reported.

Bellevue police and firefighters are on the scene, along with officials from Bellevue Utilities and Puget Sound Energy.

This question was initially posed by the L.A. Times and created plenty of local response, prompting Sportspress Northwest’s Art Thiel to declare: “Critics of Seattle in snow: Shut the hell up” and many comments on seattletimes.com.

Brendon Helgason’s Subaru Legacy was parked on California Ave SW in West Seattle and covered in thick ice. He needed to get to work in South Lake Union and had no ice scraper, so he chipped off the ice with a CD cover. The plastic splintered and broke a few times, but he was able to clear his car and get off on his way.

Jeff Stetson cleared off his car using a kitchen spatula and his coat sleeves. He explained that the technique involved chipped away the ice with the spatula, then sweeping away the snow with his arm.

For Ronald Brown, a dustpan was the tool of choice. (Video by Genevieve Alvarez)

How did you clear off your car today? List your creative solutions in the comments below.

Me neither. But someone did, and so we have video like this, from Thursday afternoon.

These daredevils built a snow jump, then towed a skier behind a car to build up speed, says Alysha Perisho, who was out for a walk when she saw the action and decided to film.

He nailed the 360 but not quite the landing.

If you’re having trouble viewing the embedded video, click here.

All district activities are also canceled, and the district’s headquarters will be closed.

“The snow is still falling and temperatures are low, making it difficult to safely transport students to and from school,” Interim Superintendent Susan Enfield said in a statement. We hope our students, families and staff members are staying safe and warm, and we look forward to re-opening our schools on Monday.” Read the full statement here.

Officials are eyeing next Friday, Jan. 27 as a possible make-up day. But they have not yet determined if that day can be used because professional development is scheduled.

With at least three days to be made up (officials have not yet determined if Tuesday, when there was a two-hour delay and two-hour early dismissal will need to be made up), an extension of the school year is likely.

Many other Puget Sound school districts have also announced that they will be closed Friday. That includes Auburn, Edmonds, Everett, Kent, Issaquah, Marysville, Northshore and Snohomish.

More information can be found here.

Vehicles drive on a snowy and icy Highway 203 near Duvall on Thursday, January 19, 2012. Video by Mark Harrison / The Seattle Times

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It was a pretty mellow scene at noon in downtown Seattle Thursday.

Arthur Wahl, a downtown commercial real estate broker, and his wife, Eva, were strolling on Pike Street and Fourth Avenue for lunch at the nearby Wild Ginger.

There were a few pedestrians on the sidewalks, and the car traffic was negligible.

“It’s maybe 25 percent of what it usually is,” said Arthur Wahl about the number of people and vehicles to be seen.

Sure, it was cold, and there was a freezing rain, and you had to negotiate pools of slush when crossing the street.

“But the interesting thing is, nobody is mad,” said Wahl. “It’s like; this is life in the big city.”

He and his wife had just taken a taxi back from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where they had hung around for four hours, waiting for a flight to Boston. They were going to see their son, Eric Wahl, play a couple of games for the Emerson College basketball team.

Then the flight was canceled and here they were, might as well have a nice lunch.

A few feet away, Belinda Gigliotti, 58, a staff analyst for Seattle Parks & Recreation, was shoveling snow on the sidewalk.

Her more normal work is in the office, in front of a computer, but the department was short-staffed and Westlake Park needed to be taken care of.

So Gigliotti helped organize six staffers and they came with rock salt and shovels.

She said some people from nearby businesses stopped by to help.

Gigliotti didn’t look particularly winded at the sudden outdoor work.

“Well, I was with the aquatic department and swam for years. And I work out,” she said.

At the Starbucks by Westlake Center, the usual group of young people was hanging around. Somebody was smoking pot.

Among those hanging out, and only smoking a menthol cigarette, was Robby Watts, 21.

He went to high school in Lacey and eventually wants to go to college. But right now he hustles promoting raves and hangs out, crashing at some friends’ apartments.

He was quite enjoying the snow, he said.

“Me and a friend went sledding yesterday at Denny and Stewart. We found this sign on the ground, made out of plastic, it was for some business that filled out taxes, and used that for a sled,” said Watts.

“I kinda busted my knee up. My friend hit a telephone pole and hit this gutter.”

But he was all mended up now, said Watts.

For the rest of Thursday, he was going to hang out with one of his friends, play video games and sled again down some hillside.

He liked snow days, said Watts.

Email your photos to our Flickr account at weatherpix@seattletimes.com.

Got photos of your pets playing in the snow? Send them to petphotos@seattletimes.com for our gallery in our Tails of Seattle pets blog.

Use the subject line for your photo caption and the body for the location and your name (do not include other personal information such as phone number or e-mail address).

Submissions are unpaid. Please see our Terms of Service, particularly the section under “License,” about “user published content.”

We appreciate you sharing your pictures. Thanks!

Thanks for the submissions so far. Here is a gallery of photos you have already shared with us. (To read the photo description, click on ‘notes’. Newest submissions are at beginning.) Keep them coming!

View Times weather photostream on Flickr.

See the rest of the series after the jump.

The first, which was reported at 8:45 p.m., is bordered by Northeast 205th Street on the north, Northeast 165th Street on the south, 55th Avenue on the east and Burke on the West. City Light estimates that power will be restored at about 3 a.m.

The second outage, reported shortly after the first, is borderd by Northeast 185th Street on the north, Northeast 120th Street on the south, 33rd Avenue Northeast on the east and Corliss on the west. City Light estimates that power will be restored at 4 a.m.

City Light says it’s possible not all customers within the above boundaries are without power.

City Light spokesman Mark VanOss said the outages are “tree-related.”

Here is City Light’s outage map.

Snohomish Snohomish County Public Utility District No. 1 reported about 10,000 customers without power at 9:30 p.m., mainly in the north and east areas of the county. The outages were attributed to heavy snow and increasing winds, the utility said, and several trouble spots have required repeat repairs.

Tacoma Power reported that outages caused by high winds still affected approximately 5,500 customers; crews have been dispatched, but there were no estimated times for restoring power.

View Walking home in the snow in a larger map