Ferry Man missing, presuumed dead, dies a hero

A sorrowful pall made its presence felt throughout the ferry Kitsap during its 6:20 a.m. crossing on Thursday, as a regular member of the Ferry Men, "Weatherman", was missing and presumed dead following a snowy night on Wednesday.

According to friends' accounts, Weatherman's finely tuned sense of meterology and forecasting had just yesterday led him to express profound fear that the evening's approaching storm "could be Snowmageddon." Acting in spite of his terror, Weatherman's final act of sacrifice will likely earn him praise from colleagues and friends for years to come, and could even result in some sort of meaningless plaque on a light-post in downtown Seattle.

"[Weatherman] was always focused on the weather and on the well-being of those around him when it came to the weather," said fellow Ferryman "Salty Sailor", a colleague at the downtown asset management firm where Weatherman was employed. "On Tuesday -- well ahead of the impending doom of the storm -- he gave his entire team the rest of the week off to deal with preparations at home, like insulating their windows, bringing in plenty of dry firewood, and stocking up on canned meat. He's a hero in my book."

In doing so, many believe Weatherman may have saved the lives of a half-dozen highly compensated white-collar workers.

Below are just a few of the dozens of photos (submitted early this morning to Ferry Tales by Weatherman's team in tribute to their boss's selfless courage) of the unfathomable suffering and weather-induced hard-ships they endured over the past 48 hours:



While Weatherman's sacrifice enabled his employees to prepare for what threatened to be their final day on Earth, Weatherman prepared himself to spend a final night Wednesday under the most harsh conditions imaginable: sleeping in a standard room, lower floor, two double-beds, non-smoking, at the Four Season's Seattle hotel.

"That was the kind of gutty sacrifice he was always willing to make," said another Ferry Man. "Every morning on the boat commute, for instance, he'd graciously give up his time to show us videos of a mind-numbing array of weather phenomena without ever asking us to return the favor. The fact that he was willing to stay at the Four Season's on the company's dime during weather like this is something I'll always remember," he said, before breaking down in tears.

When Weatherman failed to show up for his mysterious Accounting-Spreadsheet-laden-Vendor Relationship-Project-a-palooza job at the asset management firm early Wednesday morning, the firm's security team called Seattle Police.

As of this publishing, Weatherman had not been located, but authorities speculate his frozen body could be somewhere in the snow-drift (pictured below) between the company's downtown building and the Four Seasons hotel:



"We'll keep searching until we bring this brave man home to his family," said law enforcement officer Rusty Mild. "They deserve that. We're going to try calling his room again and, if that fails, we're also going to look at The Brooklyn restaurant, just in case he passed out in his Lobster Bisque last night."