The 6.8 Nisqually Earthquake: February 28, 2001

It started off like a normal school day. Got up, hassled with my brother and sister, like always, got ready for school, and ate breakfast. Once everyone was ready, I started the van and headed for school. My first hour, United States History, was very monotonous, same scenario every day, watch channel one our daily news, read the chapter, do the worksheet, when finished chat with your neighbor. Every other week or so a chapter test.

Second hour I was a teachers assistant. I corrected the student’s papers and entered them into the computer grade book. When I was finished my spare time consisted of finishing my Algebra 2 homework from the previous school day. After second period it was our twelve minute nutrition break. I walked down the stairs to the student store down the senior hall and bought a blueberry muffin.

I went back up the stairs to the junior hall and walked to my third period class Algebra 2. We had our chapter five test scheduled. Our teacher let us use notes. He believes "if you produce it you should be able to use it." He gave us a few minutes to get organized. I checked my notebook to see if I left any of my notes behind. I got up and stapled all of them together into a packet so they would be easier to keep track of. He told us the rules of test taking, no talking, looking around, etc. He handed the pieces of paper to the person in the front row. They passed them to the next person behind. I took mine and passed them back. 

I looked at number one and filled it out as completely as I could, then went on to number two. When I got to number three something strange happened. I heard this real low rumbling sound. I sounded like a bunch of people stomping as they went up the stairs. I thought it was the drama kids practicing for their up coming play. I glanced up from my test and looked around at the kids to see if they heard it and what their reaction was. One of my friends sat next to me, I whispered to her, "Megan, did you hear that?" She answered with a strange frightened look, "Yeah, I did, what was it?" "I don’t know." I said back. A few seconds later at 10:55 AM the school shook. It started off light and got stronger. My eyes got wider and wider, I didn’t know what was going on, I’ve never been in an earthquake before. We all looked at each other, none of us knew what to do. Our teacher got up out of his desk and told us it was an earthquake and to get under our desks and cover our heads. We all bolted under our desk. The second story of the school felt like it was swaying and it was going to cave in the first story or hit our gym one of them. We all looked at our teacher. The quake was so strong it knocked his I-Mac off of his desk and fell on top of him. Luckily, it didn’t hurt him or break. It lasted for a good minute or so. After it stopped we turned on the news to see what happened. It said it was a deep quake 6.8 on the Richter scale. The epicenter was located in the Nisqually Wildlife Refugee about twenty miles away from Rainier where we were. We were all shook up. Some of the kids thought Mount Rainier erupted and others thought we were getting bombed from some foreign country. We didn’t finish our test, we all wanted to know more about the earthquake, so he postponed it for the next day.

I asked other kids from different classes on what happened to them. In chemistry class some glass beakers broke, in the health classroom some of the ceiling tiles caved in, in the Spanish room a whole bookshelf collapsed, some of the books fell onto one of my friends and she was erratic the rest of the day. Out on the track, the Physical Education class saw the waves of the earthquake and told me it was a sight to see. People in the library were worried if the second story would crash on top of them. The rest of the day I heard so many stories about what happened to each person. I was really interested on what others experienced. When I got home I asked my parents and my grandparents what they were doing at the time the earthquake hit. My dad was frightened. He works in a building in Olympia that was built with concrete, not very stable. It was closed for the rest of the week for repairs. After I heard that I hoped that we didn’t have an additional one because it wouldn’t outlast another. My mom was in a dental office working. At the time that it hit, she was working on a patient with his mouth open filling in a cavity, she said it was the strangest feeling in the world. My grandparents were at home watching daytime television when the quake hit. My grandmother tried to get up out of her chair to get under the table but the force was too strong so she stayed and muscled it out. She told me my aunt was on Interstate five when it struck. When she was driving she thought something was wrong with her car, when she found out it was an earthquake, she was surprised.

So many stories about one event shared by the Pacific Northwest. That made me more interested in earthquakes. When I was in seventh grade I learned about earthquakes and volcanoes in a science class that got me hooked. I wanted to learn all I could about them. I’m fascinated by Mount Saint Helen's and Mount Rainier every time we drive past or near them, I have to look at them.

Next Adventure:  TBA