[Seattle-editorial] article: Seattle Earthquakes, Crowbars and Hardhats...

Sat Jan 17 00:46:47 PST 2004

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Subject: [Seattle-editorial] article: Seattle Earthquakes, Crowbars and
Hardhats...

Summary - 

The Seattle area has been having some seismological activity and we need
to talk about Seattle's earthquake history and our lack of preparedness.
This article has practical EQ survival tips from someone with firsthand
experience with 3 disasterous quakes...

*****************************************************************
Hardhats, Crowbars, and Earthquakes, in Seattle 
<BR>by Kirsten Anderberg Copyright 2004

On January 16, 2004, a 3.6 earthquake hit the Bremerton area, 19 miles
west of Seattle, Wa. According to the <a
href="http://www.pnsn.org/">Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network</A>, on
1/15/04, there was also a 2.4 quake in Tacoma, and a 2.4 quake in
Poulsbo, to the northwest, across the Puget Sound, from Seattle. And we
all remember the 6.8 quake that hit the Seattle area, with an Olympia
epicenter on February 28, 2001. Olympia also had a 3.6 quake in July
2001, and Poulsbo's last quake close to the recent quake was a 3.6 in
October 2000. We had a few scary quakes we could feel in Seattle in 1997
also. As a person who has been through an abnormal amount of earthquake
activity this lifetime, I can tell you that quakes under 4.0 are rarely
felt. You can see glass ripple in store windows with 3.0 quakes and
above. But things just rattle a bit with most 3.5 quakes. When you get
into 5.0+ quakes, you usually notice them, and by the time you get to
6.0+, things can start looking like a disaster, depending on the ground
composition, length of shaking, etc...I have lived through the incredible
aftermath of a 6.8 quake in <a
href="http://www.data.scec.org/chrono_index/sanfer.html">Los Angeles</A>
in 1971, a 7.1 quake in <a
href="http://wrgis.wr.usgs.gov/dds/dds-29/web_pages/scruz.html">Santa
Cruz</A> in 1989, a 6.8 in <a
href="http://autoinfo.smartlink.net/quake/quake.htm">Northridge</A> in
1994, and also, the 6.8 in Seattle in 2001.

And we all know Seattle is overdue for a killer earthquake. These
quakes we have had in the last few years truly are a joke, as far as real
earthquakes go. The mildness of the recent quakes in Seattle, and the
lack of violent aftershocks, have given us a false sense of earthquake
preparedness. We think we made it through the last few quakes, we will
make it through the next ones. We think that our Alaskan Way Viaduct
somehow will not collapse, and pin people inside cars to their death,
like the exact same kind of freeway did to people in Oakland in October
1989, and then in Kobe, Japan, after that. But that is faulty thinking,
because we are overdue for a "BIG ONE." Magnitude 6.0 - 7.5 quakes are
expected every 30-50 years here. In 1949, Olympia had a 7.1 quake. In
1965, Seatte had a 6.5 quake that killed 7 people. The 2001 quake was on
that same faultline and measured a 6.8, although that is deceiving, as it
was a mild quake on the surface. 5.0 quakes are equal to a blast from
approximately 12 million tons of TNT. 7.0 quakes are equal to a blast
from approximately 37 million tons of TNT, more shaking than an atomic
bomb creates. The 7.1 quake I experienced in the 1994 Northridge was like
a bombing. That little thing in Seattle in 2001 was nothing.

Not only is Seattle on the Ring of Fire, ripe for the "Big One," but
the city of Seattle, itself, is on bad landfill. The worst place to be in
an earthquake is on landfill or sandy soil. Sand liquifies, and landfill
has no stability to hold buildings upright. The worst damage in the 1989
Loma Prieta quake was in the landfill areas of Oakland, and on the sandy
flats of downtown Santa Cruz. If you have ever been on Seattle's
Underground Tour, you have heard them talk of how early downtown Seattle
was marshy land, so they filled it in with all the sawdust from the
timber industry. A friend of mine worked on the construction of the Metro
bus tunnels. She said they kept hitting pockets of methane gas that had
to be bled, in the land under Seattle, during construction. The scary
thing is it SEEMS that Seattle was built on landfill, then Seattle burned
down, and we built a new city on top of the unstable ruins of an old
city, and now that sawdust is turning into methane gas, and so downtown
Seattle is a powderkeg waiting to go off! I look at the Courthouse
downtown and shudder to think of the people trying to get out of those
dark, crumbling hallways in a "Big One." I get sick thinking of those
incarcerated in the jail as it collapses in a "Big One." I look at all
those unreinforced brick hotels downtown and I know they are potential
death traps. I look up at the skyscrapers, and remember hearing that the
streets will be full of 5 feet of glass in a minute under them in a "Big
One." Japanese legend says the NEXT Big Earthquake comes as soon as the
LAST Big One is forgotten. A Japanese legend says a catfish named Namazu
causes earthquakes, so courtesans and jesters attack him with knives,
knitting needles, etc. But Namazu is rescued by his friends, the
profit-minded carpenters and masons!

You probably think I am crazy to even think about this. But, I have
been at the epicenter of the last 3 most expensive earthquakes in
American history. In 1971, I lived through the Sylmar Earthquake, which
broke the Van Norman Dam and caused 80,000 people to be evacuated from
the San Fernando Valley floor immediately. The National Guard had to
bring gas in on tankers to get people out. 64 people died, 44 of those
died in a collapsed Veteran's Hospital. In 1989, I was in Santa Cruz for
the Loma Prieta quake, which measured 7.1, and collapsed nearly every
chimney and plate glass window in town. Liquor ran out of liquor store
doors in rivers that stank in the gutter, waiting for a flicked cigarette
butt to ignite it all. Natural gas fizzled under cracks in the street, as
we were evacuated. Then I moved to Northridge, just in time for the 1994
Northridge quake. That quake broke gas mains, that caught on fire, and
shot balls of flames from under the pavement, as water mains broke and
water flowed in raging rivers OVER the flame balls! My apartment building
collapsed and was red tagged the next day, so we only had what we left
with, on our backs, at 4 a.m., that night. The Red Cross had to buy us
clothing, food, and plane tickets back to Seattle. It CAN happen here.
Seattle has not had a truly devastating quake. I have seen three of them.
And those quakes occurred in warm climates. We were able to stand outside
at night in Northridge in shorts and a t-shirt without getting
hypothermia. Seattle is wet and cold, and it is not as easy to evacuate,
all night, on a street, in winter, here.

My advice is borne of experience. If I worked in ANY building
downtown, I would keep a hardhat, a whistle, a crowbar, work gloves, a
flashlight, a coat, and dust masks at my desk. I would also keep a
backpack with a wind-up transistor radio, food, water, shoes, raincoat,
blanket, paper, marker pen, map, socks, first aid kit, toilet paper, an
extra pair of glasses, house and car keys, medications, and cash. You may
be digging your way out of your building, as it collapses around you,
prying open jammed fire doors with crow bars to get out, as parts of the
ceiling falls around you in the dark, and you may end up with the only
flashlight! You have no idea how happy you will be to have these items if
you really need them. No harm done if you don't! Once out of your
building, you may still need to wade through devastation all around you.
Honestly, seeing the collapse of the World Trade Center gave me
flashbacks of earthquakes, with everyone running for their lives in
chaos, as buildings came down around them. Every car should have an
earthquake kit of blankets, water, food, shoes and coats, candles,
medications, maps, and a gas can, for an evacuation or an emergency
rerouting also. If you live in an apartment, store tent, tarps, water,
toilet paper, food, bleach, sleeping bags, clothes and games for kids,
etc. in the car, as this may be all you have left after your building
collapses. (My apartment building in Northridge was only 3 stories high
and the quake that collapsed it lasted 16 seconds). And every house
should store supplies in the garage, in a waterproof garbage can. And if
you do only one thing I tell you in this article, let it be to take a
whistle and flashlight to your workplace. You may be able to whistle when
you cannot speak. And shining a light through debris could save your life
too.

Kirsten Anderberg is writing a book on her earthquake experiences, and
you can view her growing Earthquake Preparedness Page at <a
href="www.angelfire.com/la3/kirstenanderberg/pageearthquakes.html">www.an
gelfire.com/la3/kirstenanderberg/pageearthquakes.html</A>. Other websites
of interest are <a href="http://earthquake.usgs.gov/"> the U.S.
Geological Survey's Earthquakes Hazards Program</A> and also the <a
href="http://www.earthquake.org">Global Earthquake Response Center</A>.

*************************************************************************
*********************
For near-daily political ramblings from Kirsten, visit her blog at
www.kanderberg.blogspot.com 
or go to her writing website at www.kirstenanderberg.com. For email
alerts when articles by Kirsten 
are published, go to google.com and sign up for their news alerts in her
name.

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