Washington's Earthquake (7.0)

“My brother lives in Olympia (0.5 miles from the epicenter) and I have an uncle in Shelton (on the other side of Puget Sound). Lots of damage/all highways closed. anyone else have any first/second-hand news??”

“Here's what USA Today has to say.

http://www.usatoday.com/hlead.htm”

“WOW! What a ride!!

Portland got off lucky this time... very minor damage. Seattle and Olympia got hit the hardest. 19 people in Seattle were sent to the hospital.. not many injuries at all..

Geezz.. it took us awhile here outside of Portland to realize it was a quake (my company does a LOT of construction causing shaking).. but after a few seconds of rolling back and forth in my seat we definitely knew it was an earthqauke. My body kept shaking for several minutes after it stopped.

No aparant structural damage to my house or the place of work.”

“It sure did make me smile when I called my wife and she and the kids were fine! Sure does show you how puney we humans are in the big scheme of things!”

“Yup.. I stopped by my house during lunch break to check up on it and the kids (our 3 cats). House was fine, but the cats were not in their usual sleeping spots. After a few minutes of me there they finally came out from their hiding places and wanted outside right away.”

“BTW it was 6.8”

“WHOA, that was really cool!
I thought Mt Baker was blowing her top, since shes' been steaming for the last few weeks. My coworker who had taken some Percocets an hour earlier thought he was the only one who felt anything, lol. It was a trip watching him try to play it off without being noticed.”

“I work in downtown Portland, and whew, being on the top floor of a 27th floor bldg. in an earthquake did not give me a happy feeling inside. It was weird/scary to feel/see the building swaying back & forth. I ended up jogging down those same flights to get outside.

Being from New England, this experience was all new to me.”

“I was so mad.... I was in the middle of sleeping and the damn thing started shaking me. I woke up, realzied what it was, rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. But I couldn't, so I got up took a piss and then went back to sleep. The phone rang about 15 minutes later to tell me to come into work cause they are going to do a emergency evac... So I did the rush get ready job just for them to cancel the evac right as I was pulling out of my drive way... So I went back to bed. :)”

“Rock 'n Roll Seattle!!!!”

“I just got back! I was in Eastern Washington (5 hours from here, near Spokane) on Tuesday for work and had planned to return Wednesday when news of the quake reached me. The quake was felt there (lights flickered, small stuff moved around) but I was in a car travelling and so never felt it.

All phone lines to Seattle were jammed so I couldn't get through to home or anyone here for hours! I couldn't catch a flight out of Spokane to get back here because the airport in Seattle was closed for several hours. The air traffic control tower had the windows blown out and there is plywood in place. All the rental cars were rented out in Spokane, so there was no chance of driving back either. I stayed an extra night and luckily was able to get a flight back today.

My office is better off than I thought it would be after a 6.8....they've been doing a seismic study on the POS and concluded it wouldn't be economically feasible to retrofit so were considering demo'ing it and rebuilding. Many of the staircases are closed off because of structural damage. Bricks are askew and cracks are everywhere. My work area is 5 feet from an expansion joint and the floor is uneven all along it. Ceiling tiles from the false ceiling fell all over and there?s lotsa dirt and dust covering my cubicle. My pictures and CDs fell over. A couple of bookcases and file cabinets 10 feet from my cube fell over. There was no damage at home, just things knocked over and a brief power outage, my family was at work/school and no damage there either.”

“Hehehe . . .

Steve Hiker - we Olympians are taking proprietary rights to this shaker. Seattle can go get their own danged quake! ;)

And yes, it was a wild ride.

Tekky *<:o)))”

“Hey Tekky. I thought about you there at "ground zero" in Olympia. Glad to hear that you enjoyed all the excitement. Hope it doesn't make a bunch of additional work for you. Keep your head down!”

“In October of 1983 Idaho had a 7.3 quake, The Borah Peak earthquake. Some hunter sitting in his truck watched the ground rise 12 feet in front of him. Two kids on their way to school died when the stone front of a building feel on them. The center was in a place most would call ?the middle of nowhere?. We were lucky.

I wish you the best in your recovery there in the Puget Sound area.”

“I was on the 6th floor of a sixteen story hospital tower near downtown Seattle when it hit. Built on rollers and designed to withstand a 9.0, it didn't do more than make me seasick and had rubber legs from the swaying and shaking. Safest place to be I would guess in the big one. My third and biggest earthquake...this one didn't even bother me.”

“That musta been a real titty-shaker!”

“Cool little oddity.....

http://www.gaelwolf.com/pendulum.html”

“hey,strider bet ya don't know who this is? (without lookin at my profile)”

“LOL! Where did you happen upon that peculiar handle....? And are you gonna be stalking anyplace in particular? Someplace that peope should avoid, perhaps?”

“LOL, I haven't a clue where the name came from, do you. Cool pic's of the quake with the sand art.

ps i thought ya might like my new handle”