Mike Salsbury/The Olympian
Ann Olson, a Capitol Campus tour guide, wears an earthquake T-shirt and hard hat to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Nisqually Earthquake on Thursday. Tour guides celebrated with a "Rock and Roll Day" party that featured "jiggle Jell-O" and rocky road ice cream, she said.

Lantz

Norenberg

Wayman

'Grapefruits were rolling'

Residents mark anniversary of Nisqually quake

FARHANAZ KERMALLI, PAT CONDON AND BRAD SHANNON THE OLYMPIAN

Originally published Friday, February 29, 2002

OLYMPIA -- One year ago Thursday, ceiling tiles fell, grapefruits ran wild, and water sprayed legislators.

Many South Sound residents dug up deeply imbedded images of the event on the first anniversary of the Nisqually Earthquake.

Olympia resident Michelle Tallmen, 42, remembered ceiling tiles falling as she sought cover in a Safeway supermarket.

"Water pipes had burst, grapefruits were rolling," she said. "My first thoughts were my three kids, all at different schools."

But Thursday at 10:54 a.m. -- the time the 6.8 magnitude earthquake hit -- Tallmen didn't dwell too much on thoughts of the quake.

But plenty of other people did.

"I'll never forget it," said Nicole Norenberg, manager of the downtown Olympia Juicy Fruits clothing boutique. "It was so scary. Other business people came in today talking about it."

Norenberg relived her anxiety as she recalled being stranded in the store, with windows covering the entrance and a narrow back exit.

'I just hung on'

"I kind of just hung on," she said.

Phyllis Shellgren can't reclaim what was lost.

"I lost a lot of money in Swarovski crystals," said the 74-year-old Olympia resident, who was in her second-floor apartment during the earthquake. "I sure did remember (the anniversary). I'm not afraid of anything, but I have a healthy respect for earthquakes now."

Pointing out his office window to a brand-new ceiling, Wayne Staley, president of Olympia Federal Savings, remembered metal ceiling grates dropping.

The damage caused the building to shut down temporarily after the earthquake.

"At a meeting this morning, around the time of the earthquake, we remembered," Staley said. "We were hoping something bad wouldn't happen again."

One year later, large trucks rumbling below his second-floor office still make employees edgy, Staley said.

Even those who grew up in earthquake territory remembered the anniversary.

"I was scared crazy," said Southern California native James Wayman, 34. He, like many, was concerned about his family -- his wife was taking her driver's license test and still passed.

Wayman, now an Olympia resident, recalled that the quake startled him because it started slowly and gradually built up -- not the Hollywood-style temblors to which he's accustomed.

With reminders of the quake's devastation still evident -- Wayman pointed to the incomplete Fourth Avenue bridge -- he's not surprised the earthquake still has people rattled.

"Two minutes to go," Rep. Pat Lantz, D-Gig Harbor, said Thursday morning, minutes before the one-year anniversary of the moment the earthquake shook the Capitol Campus to the core.

Lantz and her legislative assistant, Dixie Brown, wore commemorative T-shirts with the logo from the TV show "Survivor," expanded to "Earthquake Survivor: Olympia, Washington; 10:55 a.m.; 6.8; House of Representatives."

The two were on the third floor of the John L. O'Brien office building, which was hit as hard as any structure on the campus.

"I felt the earth move under my feet," Brown recalled.

The quake knocked out the electricity in the O'Brien building and triggered the sprinkler systems. Many third- and fourth-floor inhabitants faced a harrowing descent as they headed for exits.

"Dixie and I held hands going down the stairs," Lantz recalled. "We were bonded sisters."

Still, nerves seemed relaxed Thursday as 10:55 came and went.

Lantz marked the occasion the same way she spent last Feb. 28 at 10:55 a.m.: meeting with a lobbyist.

'Survivor' T-shirts

A number of House staffers wore the "Survivor" T-shirts, and some had purple polo shirts with the inscription, "I survived the Capitol quake -- Ash Wednesday 2001."

Representatives of Providence Health System spent Thursday morning passing out "Earthquake Anniversary Cookies" to lawmakers and their staffs.

The group had planned a Capitol Campus event for last March 6 to call attention to long-term care issues, and they were going to hand out cookies to lawmakers. The event was canceled after the quake.

This year, the group baked more than 600 chocolate-chocolate chip cookies: "We decided to do it as an annual anniversary tradition," said Jo Isgrigg, the group's public policy director.

Isgrigg was walking from a campus parking lot to testify at a committee hearing when the quake struck.

"There was this initial recognition of what was going on," Isgrigg said. "After that, it was just like, 'Hang on!' "

"It's in these emergencies that you really find out what people are made of," said Marsha Tadano Long, who was director of the state Department of General Administration when the quake hit. "You know how proud I am of everyone at GA and the tenants (of Capitol Campus)."

Now retired, Long visited the Legislative Building for the commemoration ceremony Thursday.

Pete DeCroupet, a security officer for the House of Representatives, remembered how he and another officer, Glenn Wilkes, "huddled at the door until it was over."

Everyone was heading outside.

"I hope that it won't happen again. There's a lot of people who probably won't come back in this building if it happens again," DeCroupet said.

'An anxiety'

"I'm leaving. I looked at the clock. I'm out of here," quipped House Minority Leader Clyde Ballard, R-East Wenatchee. "Even though you know the chances are extremely remote, there's an acute awareness ... There's an anxiety. Quite frankly, that was a very serious situation that could have been a terrible tragedy."

Ballard and others put on hard hats and packed gear and boxes, taking them to the O'Brien building early Thursday morning as if they were moving back in, which they did temporarily after the earthquake closed the Capitol.

Then they blew whistles and razzed the House staffers with whom they'd shared close quarters during the closure.

State workers who tend to the building or lead tours wore hard hats and met for cookies on the third floor to mark the quake's anniversary.

Among them was Catherine Young of the legislative facilities office. "I've been thinking about all the people I've met because of this," she said.

"I'm just remembering the whole day," said Sandy DeShaw, manager of visitor services at the Capitol. She had been across the street in another structure when the earth moved.

"As soon as it quit shaking, I ran as fast and hard to the Capitol as I could to see that my friends were safe," DeShaw said. "Then I saw all the tour guides bringing the kids out of the building, just like we'd planned. I've never been so relieved in all my life."

"The one thing I've been disappointed about is I've never been able to find a recording of the sound," said Michael Wright, the Seattle structural engineer brought in to examine the Legislative Building's stability.

Wright's verdict: It's a "phenomenal building" that held up well.

Standing in the building exactly a year after the quake, he said, "It's kind of a little bit of an eerie" feeling.

Still, Wright expressed confidence in the building's ability to survive another quake.

"I feel the Capitol is a very safe place to be," echoed DeShaw.

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