Finally! Seattle fans party in streets to celebrate Seahawks

SEATTLE — With shouts, cheers and fireworks, Seattle residents celebrated a dominant victory in the Super Bowl — the city’s first major sports championship in more than 30 years.

Scores of people took to the streets in the city’s Pioneer Square and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. Seattle police planned an increased presence throughout the city Sunday night.

They sent a tweet on the department’s widely followed Twitter account saying, “Officers will be out and about citywide making sure everyone is celebrating safely.”

The Seahawks beat the Denver Broncos, 43-8. The last time a major Seattle sports franchise won a championship was in 1979 when the Supersonics took the NBA title. The WNBA’s Seattle Storm have won two championships, in 2004 and 2010.

Mayor Ed Murray said in a statement that a Seahawks victory parade would happen Wednesday.

About 30 people watched the game at the Outlander Brewery in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood. It was such a blowout that by the fourth quarter, employees had switched one of the three TVs to Animal Planet’s “Puppy Bowl.”

“We’re all in euphoria right now,” said Steve McVay, a 43-year-old Seattle IT worker. “It’s a huge deal for the city. Since the Sonics we haven’t won anything.”

Fans blared horns and launched fireworks around the city. In the University District, near the University of Washington, rowdy fans were out in force and fire crews extinguished a bonfire.

In Occidental Park in Pioneer Square, near CenturyLink Field where the Seahawks play, people waving “12th Man” flags took to the street, and others climbed trees and statues.

Senayet Woldemarian, a 29-year-old physical therapist from the North Seattle suburb of Shoreline, shrieked and waved her Seahawks flag at honking cars on a North Seattle street: “We got our first Super Bowl!”

Her friend, wedding photographer Taylor Olcott, 28, said it reminded her a little of being in Boston in 2004, when the Red Sox won baseball’s World Series for the first time since 1918.

“This is the first time I’ve really seen Seattle passionate about anything,” she said. “It’s, like, East Coast. It’s very exciting.”

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