You were correct to move slowly. But none of you should have moved at all, except to drop to the floor and take cover under something and hold onto it. Trying to run while the ground is moving risks an injurious fall.
Today we teach Drop - Cover - Hold On in schools, but we weren't doing that in 2001 so no foul.
Absolutely right. When the quake hit, my wife worked with a former professional football player. She said that she a couple other people just hid under him!
Love the stories in the comments section! In '01 I was sitting at my computer on the second story of my house. The whole building started to sway and I picked up two puppies and ran down stairs and into the street.
65 I was at Camp Woskowitz sitting to eat breakfast with my 6th grade classmates. Saw building do things that are not right and boulders falling down the mtns. Major childhood memory.
But that is nothing compared to my 01 experience. I was at work in our second floor office area. It is located kitty corner to Renton IKEA. The office was all windows on two sides overlooking a major intersection and a 5 story IKEA sign.
We were working on why labor went over for the Seattle Gift Show. When it started shaking we laughed thinking it was just another 5er that we at the time had been having.
But I backed up into my private office door jam from the cubicle world we were working in.
Still laughing I hung on and the quake almost stopped. Then she snapped and the world went crazy. I stayed standing only because I was hanging on for dear life to the door jam.
The glass windows were acting like waving water. The traffic signal tower arms were waving in circles. The cubicle walls were banging and clattering. Computers were dancing toward desk edges. Every file cabinet and desk drawer flew open.
Today I can still hear the noise of groaning crashing and banging.
Our warehouse racking held because Renton building code made us bolt them down. But the sprinklers broke in the ceiling and we feared the gas lines up there were too.
Emergency evacuation plans we had practiced worked.
No one was hurt but what a story to tell. I felt like I was riding the dragon tail that day.
When is the next one? Survivor trauma leaves us prepared more than those who are still quake virgins
Good message David. I respect your left brain tendency and hope we all hear of no cataclysms that provoke our right brains. Even as we know they will come: "Nature bats last."
Great piece, David. And sobering to see the photo of Santa Tecla. I've experienced two of the three large quakes you mentioned -- as a baby in a sloshing bathtub in '49, and at QA High School in 1965, where we all believed the basement furnace boiler had blown up. I was spared the Nisqually experience because I was in New Orleans at the time, but every bar on Bourbon Street had the news on, with former KING newsman Jim Foreman reporting as only Jim Foreman could report (if you lived here then, you'll know what I mean). I am NOT looking forward to experiencing another quake, though I guess it comes with the territory (so to speak) if you live in Seattle. BTW...Audubon subscribers still receive a print magazine mailed to them. I think I receive one magazine each quarter. But yes, it's sad that one can no longer buy it off the rack.
Love that two readers have experienced at least 2 of the 3 large quakes here. So for the bathtub, I think you actually experienced a seiche, or standing wave in an enclosed space generated by a quake. I know we had them in Lake Union several years ago, after a big quake in Alaska.
Yes, it seems that that deep ones peak at a bit below magnitude 7, which is good. Also, helps that they are so deep that by the time the energy reaches the surface, it has dissipated somewhat.
Having experienced the April 1965 earthquake (in high school -- i was intrigued how the ceiling lifted off the support beams) and having read about the April 1949 earthquake, when the 2001 earthquake came in February, one of my reactions was to think "it's early this year."
In 1953 I was outstanding in a field -- a recently created playing field where there was liquefaction of the fill underneath, so ceased standing and rode the waves on my hands and knees, alternating between being lost in a trough, only banks of grass visible, and being up on a peak, with a great view of my surroundings and fellow wave-riders. Fortunately, the turf held its integrity in spite of the circa-one-meter stress test. That was in October, so I do understand that less dramatic earthquakes can happen at other times of the year.
Your reflection that you enjoyed standing on shaking ground and thinking "Benioff Zone" is delightful. Tis better to know and appreciate all that lies underfoot than to live an unexamined life.
Imagine what a ostrich with its head in the sand would be thinking during an earthquake.
Boing Boing Boing as the seismic waves passed through. Reminds of the section in Rob Macfarlane's book about his pal Wayne and his desire to be buried in a seismically active region.
Mcfarlane's epilogue in "Is a River Alive?" was a breathtaking visualization of his children scattering his ashes into the chalk springs near his home. On a similar vein, my friend and aboreal ecologist Nalini Nadkarni has written a lovely imagining of her own sky burial and decomposition high in the crook of a tropical overstory in her book, "Between Earth and Sky."
You were correct to move slowly. But none of you should have moved at all, except to drop to the floor and take cover under something and hold onto it. Trying to run while the ground is moving risks an injurious fall.
Today we teach Drop - Cover - Hold On in schools, but we weren't doing that in 2001 so no foul.
Absolutely right. When the quake hit, my wife worked with a former professional football player. She said that she a couple other people just hid under him!
Love the stories in the comments section! In '01 I was sitting at my computer on the second story of my house. The whole building started to sway and I picked up two puppies and ran down stairs and into the street.
Oh the memories this brought back.
I have felt both the 65 and 01.
65 I was at Camp Woskowitz sitting to eat breakfast with my 6th grade classmates. Saw building do things that are not right and boulders falling down the mtns. Major childhood memory.
But that is nothing compared to my 01 experience. I was at work in our second floor office area. It is located kitty corner to Renton IKEA. The office was all windows on two sides overlooking a major intersection and a 5 story IKEA sign.
We were working on why labor went over for the Seattle Gift Show. When it started shaking we laughed thinking it was just another 5er that we at the time had been having.
But I backed up into my private office door jam from the cubicle world we were working in.
Still laughing I hung on and the quake almost stopped. Then she snapped and the world went crazy. I stayed standing only because I was hanging on for dear life to the door jam.
The glass windows were acting like waving water. The traffic signal tower arms were waving in circles. The cubicle walls were banging and clattering. Computers were dancing toward desk edges. Every file cabinet and desk drawer flew open.
Today I can still hear the noise of groaning crashing and banging.
Our warehouse racking held because Renton building code made us bolt them down. But the sprinklers broke in the ceiling and we feared the gas lines up there were too.
Emergency evacuation plans we had practiced worked.
No one was hurt but what a story to tell. I felt like I was riding the dragon tail that day.
When is the next one? Survivor trauma leaves us prepared more than those who are still quake virgins
Wow. Dang. Golly ned. That's an experience not to be forgotten.
Good message David. I respect your left brain tendency and hope we all hear of no cataclysms that provoke our right brains. Even as we know they will come: "Nature bats last."
Great piece, David. And sobering to see the photo of Santa Tecla. I've experienced two of the three large quakes you mentioned -- as a baby in a sloshing bathtub in '49, and at QA High School in 1965, where we all believed the basement furnace boiler had blown up. I was spared the Nisqually experience because I was in New Orleans at the time, but every bar on Bourbon Street had the news on, with former KING newsman Jim Foreman reporting as only Jim Foreman could report (if you lived here then, you'll know what I mean). I am NOT looking forward to experiencing another quake, though I guess it comes with the territory (so to speak) if you live in Seattle. BTW...Audubon subscribers still receive a print magazine mailed to them. I think I receive one magazine each quarter. But yes, it's sad that one can no longer buy it off the rack.
Love that two readers have experienced at least 2 of the 3 large quakes here. So for the bathtub, I think you actually experienced a seiche, or standing wave in an enclosed space generated by a quake. I know we had them in Lake Union several years ago, after a big quake in Alaska.
Remarkable consistency in magnitude of recent quakes:
1949 Olympia earthquake — 6.7
1965 Puget Sound earthquake — 6.5
2001 Nisqually earthquake — 6.8
Also geographically not that far apart, relative to the span of the subduction zone.
Yes, it seems that that deep ones peak at a bit below magnitude 7, which is good. Also, helps that they are so deep that by the time the energy reaches the surface, it has dissipated somewhat.
Having experienced the April 1965 earthquake (in high school -- i was intrigued how the ceiling lifted off the support beams) and having read about the April 1949 earthquake, when the 2001 earthquake came in February, one of my reactions was to think "it's early this year."
That's outstanding!
In 1953 I was outstanding in a field -- a recently created playing field where there was liquefaction of the fill underneath, so ceased standing and rode the waves on my hands and knees, alternating between being lost in a trough, only banks of grass visible, and being up on a peak, with a great view of my surroundings and fellow wave-riders. Fortunately, the turf held its integrity in spite of the circa-one-meter stress test. That was in October, so I do understand that less dramatic earthquakes can happen at other times of the year.
Wow, totally amazing.
Correction: 1963. Epicenter near Sammamish?
Your reflection that you enjoyed standing on shaking ground and thinking "Benioff Zone" is delightful. Tis better to know and appreciate all that lies underfoot than to live an unexamined life.
Imagine what a ostrich with its head in the sand would be thinking during an earthquake.
Boing Boing Boing as the seismic waves passed through. Reminds of the section in Rob Macfarlane's book about his pal Wayne and his desire to be buried in a seismically active region.
Mcfarlane's epilogue in "Is a River Alive?" was a breathtaking visualization of his children scattering his ashes into the chalk springs near his home. On a similar vein, my friend and aboreal ecologist Nalini Nadkarni has written a lovely imagining of her own sky burial and decomposition high in the crook of a tropical overstory in her book, "Between Earth and Sky."
"Seattle Shakes" sounds like what the franchise name would be if Seattle joined the PWHL.