Earthquake Jolts Seattle

Feb 28 2001

SEATTLE - After a strong earthquake close to one of the country's most high-tech cities, downtown Seattle was packed at lunchtime Wednesday with traffic moving out of the center.

Several downtown companies experienced disruptions in normal business as thousands of people - many evacuated from office buildings and stores - milled around in the streets and jumped on free buses to get home to their families. Phone circuits to Seattle were intermittently overwhelmed as people from around the U.S. and the world called their friends and family, often getting repeated busy signals.

Building damage was considerable in the south end of the city where walls and brick facades of some older buildings collapsed. Power was cut to some 17,000 residents. Air transport in and out of Seattle was wiped out for the day when Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was closed. The airport control tower reportedly sustained damage.

For all that, only a handful of serious injuries and no deaths were reported. Indeed, disruption and harm were minimal considering that it was the largest earthquake to strike the Pacific Northwest in 50 years. Most major businesses in the region are still operating, and no major Web sites appear to be down.

The earthquake, which hit at approximately 11 a.m. PST, was initially estimated by the University of Washington to be a 6.2 magnitude temblor. Later reports, however, suggest that it might have been 6.8 or 7 on the Richter scale, used to measure seismic activity. In homes throughout the city, people grabbed their children and ducked into doorways. Wary of aftershocks, office and retail store workers spilled onto the streets immediately afterward as managers conducted building surveys.

High-tech firms in the city were affected differently depending on their location. E-retailer Amazon.com , headquartered in a landmark building perched on a hill on the south side of the city, was badly shaken.

"It was enough to make me dive under my door-desk," says Amazon spokeswoman Kristin Schaefer. She was referring to the signature desks the company has used since Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos famously saved early office set-up expenses by making makeshift desks out of old doors.

Hundreds of Amazon employees were evacuated immediately after the quake. After a preliminary look, building inspectors decided that they needed at least a couple more days to conduct a thorough inspection before giving an all-clear signal. As a result, staffers were either sent home to work or redeployed to other Amazon buildings downtown.

However, Schaefer says there will be no impact on Amazon's customers and no serious disruption to the business. The company recently closed its dispatch warehouse in the city, and distribution is handled by centers across the country. Amazon's data center, which houses the banks of servers that keep its business running, is in a secure building in downtown Seattle and was not affected. The Amazon Web site is still running as normal.

By contrast, on the east side of the city across Lake Washington, the Microsoft campus, which is composed of mostly low-slung earthquake-safe buildings, saw little disruption.

"I ran out of the building and about 4 minutes later came back in and continued doing e-mail," reported Microsoft spokesman Adam Sohn. "Employees are all back to work, phone and Internet access are as fast as ever and sites all are available."

Microsoft manager Mike Kelly described the earthquake as the biggest he had experienced here.

"I was bracing myself in the doorway," says Kelly via e-mail. "Funny, my first reaction when it stopped is, 'Let me save my work on the computer.' "

At Boeing , the largest manufacturer in the city, one plant just south of the city center, was evacuated and some employees headed home out of concern for family.

This was the pattern throughout a city unnerved by the unfamiliar and strong shaking. Although less active than the California earthquake zones, a major fault line runs through Seattle and the city has been shaken by small quakes several times in recent years. Wednesday's earthquake was a much more jarring reminder that the proverbial "big one" is possible. The latest fatal earthquake in the region was in 1949, when a 7.1 temblor centered in state capital Olympia, south of Seattle, killed eight people. Wednesday's quake left a crack in Olympia's capitol dome.