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March 2, 2001
Thank you to those who wrote me and asked about the earthquake! I am fine! Here is my saga:
I work in downtown Seattle, at Swedish Medical Center (largest medical center in Western Washington and about two blocks from Harborview Medical Center, which is our big trauma center).
I was happily going about my business and was standing in the nurses station when at 10:55am, I thought that I was very dizzy and about to fall over. I say that because I literally saw the floor jerk up under me and push me back… at first I thought I was about to faint and thought “that was weird”. All in sync, everyone (about 20 people) all said, “WHOA!”. I don’t think anyone realized what it was. Then we heard a big “CRACK” and again, all at once, everyone screamed, “It’s an earthquake!”. Then the panic set in. I have been in very minor quakes (in the range of 3 on the Richter scale) but nothing like this. All of a sudden the walls and the floors were bouncing, moving side to side, shaking, and jerking. What was so strange is that the walls were going in one direction, the floors in another. When you tried to hold onto a wall (in a doorway), you couldn’t stand straight because the floor would move you somewhere else. We were literally being bounced around and moved all over. The sounds were so loud and amazing… you can’t believe buildings can make that much noise!! There were thirty visitors at the top of the Seattle Space Needle when the quake hit… they said you could hear the metal grating together … how eery!!! They could also see the water in the bay below just rippling. For anyone who doesn’t know about the Space Needle, check out www.spaceneedle.com. Then see if this is somewhere YOU’D want to be!
I actually had a “death” experience. I honestly believed it was over. The walls and floors were moving so much… it was so surreal… you just KNEW that at any moment, it was all going to crumble. Everyone was praying out loud as we were being tossed around. In the human mind, cement is NOT supposed to be able to rock, move, wave, and sway without breaking. You could see waves in the concrete floors underneath you. I wasn’t afraid to die… just afraid that it would hurt. I didn’t want to be crushed. In the next moment, I just wanted to run to my patients. It turned out that my patients are the ones who comforted ME! They’ve all been through this before.
One of my patients (poor thing) had the “best seat in the house” – a view of the rest of downtown and the waterfront. He said the downtown buildings were swaying so far that he was sure they would break off and fall down. The rocking just kept up… for close a minute… but what seemed like eternity. Then the chaos set in. A bunch of our patients went nuts… they were all saying “Just get me out of here. I want to go home.” It was crazy.
Bottom line… I AM SO BLESSED. Many people in Washington don’t know just how blessed they are. This was a quake of 6.8!!!! That is nothing to sneeze at. The latest news reports say the damage is estimated at $25 million in Seattle. That is NOTHING considering a quake of this magnitude hit three large metropolitan cities (Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle). There is only ONE quake-related death. Even that death was not due to injury, but to a heart attack. Most people NEVER even lost power. The phone lines were down LESS THAN ONE HOUR in most cases. Most homes have only minor cracks in walls. Some had pipe breakage. If this quake had been closer to the surface the damage would have been so much worse.
I work with a lot of people from California and they all told me that this was the worst quake they’ve ever been in (including Northridge and San Francisco). When I say “worst”, I mean it FELT worse… California suffered WAY more damage.
My condo has some cracks that will need to be repaired before closing. I think the inspection on it will still be okay. I have not yet seen our new home that we are buying… I have been a work-a-holic since Monday. I did lose the Italian glass that I hand-carried from Venice a year ago – it was all shattered. Other than that, nothing broke. We are so lucky that our shelves and book cases face North-South… anything facing East-West was trashed… all the stuff would’ve been off the shelves then. My poor parakeet… He lives in a cage that hangs from a pole in our room… well… We found his cage… on the floor…. Across the opposite side of our room! My poor bird went flying in a whole new way!
Anyway… we are definitely shook up, but just can’t BELIEVE this state didn’t see more damage. We are very lucky to have strict building codes. The building are MADE to sway and move and some “give” in them. Very, very, very frightening.
I suppose I should make mention of the whole TTC thing, although it’s been the LAST thing on my mind this week! I quit keeping track of how long this cycle is. I know it’s the “seventy-somethingth” day. I started spotting again today, HEAVILY… so I’m hoping this is really AF… I know you all don’t care about her, but she is WELCOME in my home this week! I really have no more to say on the topic… still sitting in limbo.
We visited our neighborhood where we will be moving... it’s BEAUTIFUL! We are walking distance from the lake… very family-oriented neighborhood with awesome schools. The schools don’t really matter to me since I don’t have kids, but neighborhoods with good schools tell volumes about the people who live there. We are just so excited about this! We are just praying that nothing earthquake-related will keep us from making this sale go through.
Well… I’ve rambled enough for a day. Thanks for letting me share my earthquake story. It helps to talk about it. It really was a bit traumatizing. Wishing lots of baby dust on everyone!
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