Think you’ve had the worst year ever? Try living in Washington state in 2020.
Along with enduring the first US coronavirus case, the Evergreen State was hit by a quadruple-whammy of violence and natural disasters this year— including historic wildfires, murder hornets, the chaotic Capitol Hill Occupation Protest zone and record-high shooting deaths.
Here’s a round-up of the bizarre misfortune and heartbreaking loss that’s plagued that pocket of the Pacific Northwest during this year from hell.
January 2020: First case of COVID-19 surfaces
On Jan. 15, a man in his 30s returned to his home in Snohomish County, near Seattle, after a trip to the now-infamous Chinese city of Wuhan. The unidentified traveler soon developed intense flu-like symptoms and tested positive for COVID-19 — sending the nation, which hadn’t yet recorded a case of COVID-19, into a state of panic.
The patient was treated by a robot doctor in a tiny secured hospital room in Everette, Wash. to reduce the risk of the illness spreading, according to a report. He survived — but the number of infections in the state soon soared into the thousands, and it became the initial US epicenter of the pandemic.
“[It] really did put us in the position to the lead the country,” said Celestina Barbosa-Leiker, vice chancellor of research at Washington State University Health Sciences in Spokane.
“We had researchers across the country that were watching us,” she said told The Post, adding that 2020 as a whole has “been challenging.”
The next month, a man in his 50s was the first person to die of COVID-19 on US soil — in a Seattle-area hospital.
May 2020: Murder hornets won’t buzz off
After the body of a queen Asian giant hornet was found in Cluster, Wash. on May 27, the jumbo stingers began invading other parts of the state. Residents and scientists scrambled to set up more than 1,000 traps for the insects, which can grow up to 2 inches long, and are a threat to honey bees.
But that didn’t stop dozens of the hornets — which cause “searing pain” and have reportedly killed people in Japan — from emerging in following months.
“I don’t think the concern is overstated,” Barbosa-Leiker said. “These hornets are a huge threat to honey bees and we rely on them for agriculture.”
Last week, officials found a nest with 98 of the insects inside and destroyed it.
“The fight is not over,” the Washington Department of Agriculture said.
June 2020: Seattle’s CHOP zone descends into chaos
Following the police killing of George Floyd, a flood of protesters took over the area surrounding an abandoned police precinct in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood.
The demonstrators pitched tents in the zone, which stretched 60 blocks — and came to be known as the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ), or the Capitol Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) area — to protest police brutality.
But the so-called “socialist summer camp” quickly descended into chaos, with neighbors and business owners complaining about a spike in crime at the boarded up, graffiti-covered protest site.
After several assaults and at least two fatal shootings in area, Seattle Mayor Jenny Durian announced the zone would be dismantled in June — less than a month after Floyd’s death.
September 2020: Fatal shootings soar in Seattle
The number of people shot in the Seattle area has more than tripled so far this year, according to local reports. In 2020, 58 people were killed in King County — which comprises Seattle and its suburbs — between January and September, up from 18 homicides reported in Seattle in 2019, according to kxl.com.
The fatalities include Adriel Webb, an 18-year-old who was killed at a gas station in July, and the creepy case of a victim found in a suitcase by a group of teens — who filmed the discovery on TikTok — on a Seattle-area shoreline in June.
“This could be our highest year ever of the homicide rate in King County,” King County Sheriff’s Office Sargent Ryan Abbott told the local station KUOW.
September 2020: Historic wildfires rage
Powerful winds and dry weather sent dozens of wildfires tearing through Washington — forcing hundreds of families to flee their homes, and rendering much of the state’s air hazardous in early September.
The blazes destroyed breathtaking forests near the Puget Sound and left scenic farming towns nothing but smoldering piles of ash.
When the smoke cleared, a record-high number of acres had burned in the state — more than 713,000, according to the Seattle Times.
Despite Washington’s brutal year, some experts said it’s tough to argue that its residents had a more experience than people living in states with sky-high COVID-19 mortality rates.
“I’m a little hard-pressed to say Washington state is the worst,” said John Roll, Vice Dean of Research in Washington State University’s Health Sciences department.
In 2020, he said, “I think there’s plenty of badness to go around.”