Starbucks employees Desi Saylors (left) and Michelle Robinson volunteer warm smiles while delivering free coffee to cold, wet workers clearing rubble from a sidewalk in downtown Olympia Thursday.

Disaster brought out best in people

Jim Carlile, The Olympian

OLYMPIA -- The streets had never looked so crowded to K.D. Seeley just after Wednesday's earthquake rolled through South Sound.

Seeley looked into the cars that jammed streets, and she saw fear on everyone's face.

Fear for loved ones and their children at school. Fear of aftershocks and fear for damage to their homes.

Amid the traffic, confusion and adrenaline, people were kind and gracious to each other, said Seeley, a public information officer for the Olympia Police Department. They were letting cars from side roads in front of them. Nobody was honking and no tempers were lost.

"It was the most orderly, non-panicked thing I've ever seen," Seeley said.

Seeley wasn't surprised to see it.

"This is the community I live in," Seeley said. "It's a place where people care about people. If you see someone in dire straits here, you help them."

Everyone seemed to know there wouldn't be mayhem and looting. Instead, many expected South Sound residents to band together and help those in need.

And that's what happened.

"I was born and raised here. This was exactly the sort of higher level of operation that I expected from locals," said Ken Hansen, tribal chairman of the Samish Indian Nation in Anacortes. "Tourists and newer arrivals, I don't expect that much from."

When the quake hit, Hansen was on the fifth floor of the downtown Olympia Ramada Inn.

"At one point, I wasn't sure the building was going to make it," said Hansen, who is confined to a wheelchair for anything other than short distances.

Immediately after the quake, the staff of the Ramada was checking on people in every room to make sure everyone was safe.

With water cascading down the stairwell, a hotel employee helped Hansen down every step.

"The hotel staff was as well-trained as if they were firefighters," he said. "These folks are a credit to the Olympia community. There was just a communal feeling everywhere downtown."

After filing back into the building, hotel staff members handed out free hot food.

Two sight-impaired people wandered into the lobby off the street and were treated like royalty, Hansen said.

They weren't even guests at the hotel. Nobody was turned away, Hansen said.

Cookies and coffee

Soon after the earthquake, when many were still panicked, students at Roosevelt Elementary got a calming gift from bakers across the street.

The San Francisco Street Bakery handed out cookies for Roosevelt's 300 students.

After the panic of the quake was over and the big damage assessed, the cleanup began on Thursday.

Workers were ducking in and out of buildings in hard hats. A cold rain wasn't making the downtown Olympia cleanup comfortable, so Starbucks decided to help.

"We gave out free coffee to people working on the cleanup," said Desi Saylors, a Starbucks worker.

While the earthquake was a hands-on lesson in seismology to many locals, a few middle school students knew just what to expect.

Two weeks after their students raised $1,000 for earthquake victims in El Salvador, Komachin Middle School teachers found more good in their students.

"It was wild at the school -- yet strangely calm," said teacher Vicki Leonard.

"By the time I told them to get under their desks, they were already there," said teacher Dixie Reimer.

The class was prepared for an earthquake, the students were patient, and everyone was well behaved, Leonard and Reimer said.

Experiencing an earthquake helped students better understand why they raised money for people in El Salvador, they said.

Their students weren't the only ones prepared for the quake.

Ronen Johnson, a student at The Evergreen State College, was in a chemistry class when the building began to shake.

Johnson directed people into doorways, he said, and once everyone got out of buildings, Johnson shuttled people to the parking lots.

Reaching out

John Devoy and Sarah Aanrud work for Evergreen housing and they said the college staff banded together to help others.

There was a communal feeling on campus as people gathered in a nearby soccer field, Aanrud said.

"The outpouring of help has just been amazing," Seeley said. "We've had neighbors helping other neighbors and people checking on elderly neighbors to make sure they're OK. Displaced people found homes with community members. Only 15 people had to stay at the Red Cross shelter."

Some of the first people to assess damage from the quake were sanitation workers who were picking up garbage.

When they saw damage to a building or road, they would immediately call it in. When needed, they would direct traffic around warped or otherwise impassable roads, Seeley said.

Good deeds aren't only being performed by South Sound residents who were hit hardest by the quake.

Public works departments and corporations from around the state have called to see if extra engineers are needed to assess structural damage, Seeley said. One company offered housing for people who can't go home.

Clare Tynan, program director for the Community Foundation, said the group is working with non-profit organizations, such as the Red Cross, the Housing Authority and the Olympia Downtown Association.

If any nonprofit organization in Thurston or Mason County suffered structural damage beyond what its insurance will cover, the Community Foundation is also there to help.

The Olympian Copyright 2000

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