SEATTLE - Seattle city council members are urging departments to devise a better warning system to alert residents, both English speaking and non-English speaking about upcoming storms, a system which could also be used in natural disasters such as earthquakes.

Most say city response went relatively well for the heavy rains and windstorm then left 175,000 Seattle City Light customers in the dark and streets flooded. But there were suggestions that a better notification system was needed to warning of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning and a better way to advise people of the possible length of power outages and the location of shelters.

Some suggested the used of a reverse 911 system -- that is, notifying residents by phone from 911 headquarters.

And City Light says it would be able to better pinpoint problems and estimate the time for renewed service if the utility had in place a remote meter system such as the one used by several private companies. A pilot program for such a system is expected to be unveiled next year.

Seattle Emergency Management Director says preliminary estimates place damage to publicly-owned facilities and roadways at $16 million.

Seattle City Light Superintendent Jorge Carrasco says one of the problems the utility faces is a shortage of line repair personnel. He says the city's budget provides the money, but the department has 30 positions vacant, even with an average salary of $33 to $34 an hour.

Seattle, Carrasco explained, couldn't even find people to hire temporarily. He said many of the extra crews were in Snohomish County cleaning up after an earlier snowstorm. The PUD just held on to them.

Seattle spends $3 million a year trimming trees. Most say that's not enough. Most importantly, Carrasco says Seattle has been ignoring maintenance needs: "Over the course of the last 10 to 15 years, the utility has not done enough to replace and maintain its critical infrastructure."

Seattle's street drainage system was overpowered by the storm. Cars were window-deep on Mercer Street. Meanwhile, Kate Fleming drowned in her basement in the Madison Valley area when urban floodwaters came rushing in.

Chuck Clarke of Seattle Public Utilities says the drainage system was designed for 25-year floods.

"It rains in Seattle, sometimes all day," he said. "But we don't get an inch is less than an hour."

This time there was an inch of rain in 20 minutes.

"When you get back-to-back 100-year floods in two years. And the 100 years is based on 70 or 100 years of record you start say 'Hmmmmmm. Is the last 10 years different from the last 60?' "

The utilities director says the UW is now looking at what's happening around here; he suspects it's global warming.

Providing a 100-year flood control system for Madison Valley will cost $30 million. Fixing drainage everywhere would be very expensive.

Meanwhile, Councilman Tom Rasmussen says officials want better preparedness from all departments.

"We had two days' warning about this storm, there are indications we could have done more to be more prepared," he said. "Both with regard to having our shelters open, and making sure they had the supplies they need."