Steve Bloom/The Olympian
Connie Cantrell, shown outside her Franklin Street rental home, says she's afraid to go back into the house.

Quake shakes duo's foundation

MICHAEL BURNHAM, THE OLYMPIAN

OLYMPIA -- A welcome sign dangles from the front door of John and Connie Cantrell's rental home.

But there's no one to welcome anymore: A red tag prohibiting occupancy is taped nearby on the window pane.

"We stayed here for three days and it just kept shaking and shaking," said John Cantrell of his one-story, Franklin Street home. "A Greyhound bus came along each night, and it was like an earthquake all over again."

On the fourth day, he called for a city inspection.

"He took one look at the basement and said 'I'm out of here,' " John Cantrell said of Olympia Building official Brian Washko's visit to the crumbling basement.

So were the Cantrells -- who are now staying at Olympia's Golden Gavel Motor Hotel and eating at the Spar Caf, with the financial help of the American Red Cross.

John Cantrell says there is a long road ahead that includes finding a new home and salvaging their belongings.

Homeless

But the Cantrells say they are already road weary. Before they moved into the 1912 house in September, they were homeless.

To pay for the rental home's $500-a-month rent, John Cantrell works seven days a week at a downtown Jack in the Box; Connie works by his side six of those days.

"We just finished painting the house and planting the yard and now it's all gone," John Cantrell said. "It's nobody's fault, just Mother Nature's, but we have to start all over again."

Just how bad is the damage?

"You can count the stars," he said from within the basement, probing a crack in the foundation's cement wall big enough to put his hand through.

The home's six-inch lateral support beam is now braced by about three inches of foundation concrete, and the ground floor tilts at about a 10-degree angle.

The basement floor sunk about four inches on one half of the house, and a horizontal crack almost encircles the house.

Connie Cantrell preferred to stand out in a cold drizzle than enter the home Sunday morning.

"It bothers me to go in there because there are a lot of memories in there," Connie Cantrell said. "I lost all of my grandma's antiques."

John estimates that it costs the Red Cross between $600 and $700 each week to feed and lodge him and his wife.

"They won't put us out on the streets, but they want us to find a place as soon as possible," John Cantrell said. "The Red Cross and The Spar have been absolutely unbelievable."

For now, the Cantrells use Intercity Transit buses to hunt for apartments.

John Cantrell said they have a lead on a place on the west side and he is keeping his fingers crossed for a Federal Emergency Management Agency grant to help pay for a new place.

But some losses, he said, will never be recovered.

"I miss my home already," he said of the freshly painted home with purple trim. "It was a good house, and it was ours."

Michael Burnham covers Olympia for The Olympian. He can be reached at 704-6869.

By the numbers

The Thurston-Mason County American Red Cross is still providing disaster aid to more than 500 people, including emergency shelter for seven displaced persons, said Red Cross Disaster Coordinator Vance Aeschleman.

The Red Cross provided housing assistance to as many as 54 people at once, he added. For more information, call 352-8575.

Donations to help with earthquake relief can be sent to the local chapter at P.O. Box 1547, Olympia, WA 98507.

On the web:

American Red Cross.

Earthquake links.

Earthquake stories archive.

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