Mike Salsbury/The Olympian
A street in the Tumwater Mobile Estates collapsed as a result of the earthquake.

Displaced residents recall moment of fear

Quake interrupts daily routines

LIONA TANNESEN, THE OLYMPIAN

OLYMPIA -- Allion Brewer was in bed and thought he was ill when the quaking started.

But when a water bottle from his bedside table hit him, he knew it was an earthquake.

"The little tank that the fish was in splashed all over the sewing machine," Brewer said.

Pictures fell off the walls of his home at the Olympian Apartments, a mirror tipped over and items perched on top of cupboards tumbled to the kitchen floor.

"I was hearing ... rips, stuff like that," Brewer said. "Things falling, people hollering outside.

"They must have been watching how our building was dancing."

South Sound's 6.8 magnitude earthquake did serious damage to the downtown apartment building, leaving 52 residents without a home.

The building was among 13 the city of Olympia evacuated the day of the quake because inspectors deemed it unsafe.

Brewer was among about 10 men and women, mostly from the Olympian Apartments, who were at the Red Cross shelter at the Gloria Dei Lutheran Church on Harrison Avenue that night, talking about the earthquake.

James Carlson recalled how he was rubbing shampoo into his wet hair in front of the kitchen sink when the floor and walls started to move at Olympian Apartments.

"I heard cracking inside my apartment," Carlson said. "I was shaking for about 10 minutes even after it was all over."

When the quaking began, Carlson said he dropped a towel on his head, grabbed a jacket and walked to the front door. From there, he watched books fall off the bookshelf and crystal off the counter.

A crack ran near the ceiling in the wall between the bedroom and living room.

When the shaking stopped, Carlson said he rinsed the shampoo out of his hair and grabbed a radio.

"It's really strange. You think you're going to do this, and you think you're going to do that in a situation," Carlson said. "I didn't do any of that. I should have grabbed my cellular phone. I should have grabbed my briefcase."

Resident Greg Hoyt didn't get a chance to grab anything from his apartment with a view of Budd Inlet and the Cascade mountains because he was getting ready to order an omelet at the new Darby's on Fifth when the apartments started swaying.

He said everybody in the restaurant froze at the same time, then headed for the door at the same time.

"I was apprehensive," Hoyt said. "I felt like something was going to hit me on the back of the neck."

He became more apprehensive when the police tape around his apartment building was replaced with a cyclone fence later in the afternoon.

"All my belongings are on the sixth floor," Hoyt said. "I'd hate to lose my apartment."

Brewer, a retired apartment manager, said he also would hate to have to leave his apartment, where he has lived for about four years.

"It's quite a unique place because of its oldness, its quaintness," Brewer said. "Built in 1920, it was grand in its day."

But Brewer saw cracks across the walls and ceilings about every six feet down the halls when he left the building. The building smelled dusty, perhaps from plaster cracking, he said.

"Earthquakes are kind of nerve-shattering for sure," Brewer said. "They separate us from the reality we got used to."

The Olympian Copyright 2001

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