Sunday’s “March Madness” windstorm, which resulted in downed trees, property damage, power outages, and road closures, provided a rare opportunity for Mercer Island residents to complain about something valid.
Living in an affluent island community that is isolated from problems like war, failing infrastructure, and abject poverty, Mercer Island residents normally have to dig deep to come up with something to gripe about. But the storm and its aftereffects provided actual substantive, if transient, challenges for Islanders to deal with.
“Usually when I go on social media, I see my fellow Islanders moaning about the pettiest of things: Broadband speed, city officials, local restaurants, and other people’s pets,” said Y. Don Yashaddap, president of local organization Woes Happy Islanders Never Experience (WHINE). “So it was refreshing to read about the somewhat serious problems that they were experiencing and to witness our community come together in the face of this brief interlude of hardship.”
Now that the power has been restored to all homes and roads are cleared, Islanders are once again free to go online and bicker incessantly with each other about whether we should build an Arts Center in Mercerdale Park issues of little consequence.