High-Voltage, Fire-Breathing Striptease Halts Seattle Traffic

It wasn’t your standard traffic jam when a fire-spitting woman danced topless Wednesday morning atop a high-voltage electrical tower beside a freeway bridge.

Nor was it the typical power outage when Seattle City Light cut electricity to 5,000 homes and businesses to protect her from being zapped by the 120,000 volts of juice flowing through the lines the tower supports.

It was “an extremely dangerous, hazardous situation,” said Larry Vogel, a spokesman for the utility.

Ara Tripp, 38, of Olympia, wore a red bandanna, halter top, cutoff jeans and hiking boots when she was noticed climbing the 180-foot tower that carries electrical lines about 50 feet west of the Interstate 5 bridge over the Lake Washington Ship Canal at 7:26 a.m., police spokeswoman Carmen Best said.

At the top, Tripp doffed her top and began gyrating and snapping her fingers, occasionally swigging from a bottle of vodka, spitting out the liquor and igniting it. Southbound traffic on the freeway slowed to a near-standstill and was backed up for miles.

After about an hour she put her top on and climbed down, again spurning a ladder in favor of the angled support girders--one onlooker said she appeared to be an accomplished climber--and reached the ground at 8:53 a.m.

Tripp was arrested and booked into the King County Jail for investigation of criminal trespass and indecent exposure, Best said.