Honored

I took a moment to go back and look at my blog - I don't post a lot about my job or where I work. In fact the only thing I could find about it was the dodge ball games. Tonight I am going to post about my work. I love my job, and as most of you know it is important to me and I am proud of where I work. I work for the Washington State Department of Transportation. And in the last 5 days I have had the opportunity to watch how we handle an emergency - from the inside!

I had the opportunity to serve in the emergency operations center for a night shift and a day shift over the last 3 days. I did all kinds of things, answered public calls in the middle of the night, write up briefing information, update databases with closure information, and attempt to help in any way I could. It was tiring, but fun to be in the center of so much excitement and action.

But most of all it humbled me to see all the hundreds of people that worked night and day to help the traveling public and citizens in need. From radio operators to support staff to maintenance workers in the danger areas to executives - I was impressed with everyone's passion and dedication to serving the public. Many people sacrificed to help others - and will continue to do so - and it reaffirms my passion for being a public servant.

Here are just a couple shots for anyone that hasn't been watching the news:


For anyone interested in more shots of the activity across the state check out our flicker page here. We had roads give out, mud slides, avalaches, trees and wires down, washouts, flooding . . . at one point every mountain pass and major North/South route in Western Washington were closed.

As a second generation WSDOT employee I wanted to share the amazing efforts by the Department. I want to say thanks to all those maintenance staff out there in the cold and dangerous weather - you are amazing. And Ihope that the next time you run across someone from WSDOT, especially someone from maintenance, you'll remember this post and say thanks!