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| A woman takes a brick as an earthquake memento in Olympia, Wash. Yesterday’s temblor rattled the Pacific Northwest and was the strongest to hit Washington in 52 years.
Associated Press |
 Travelers leaving Isles face uncertainty, delays
6.8 quake jolts Pacific Northwest
Were you there? Join a discussion on the earthquake.
By Walter Wright
Advertiser Staff Writer
Jon Komine, who came to Seattle from Honolulu eight months ago to work for a dot.com company in the heart of the city’s historic Pioneer Square district, wasn’t sure he was going to back to work this morning — at least not until engineers give his eight-story building a clean bill of health.
Komine said neither tsunami warnings nor hurricanes in Hawai‘i had prepared him for the frightening jolt of the 6.8 earthquake that rolled through the Puget Sound area yesterday, making skyscrapers sway and sending cascades of bricks plummeting into the streets.
| How to help
People interested in assisting victims of the Seattle earthquake may make contributions to The American Red Cross Disaster Relief Fund by calling 800-HELP NOW or 800-257-7575 (Spanish).
Contributions may also be sent to the Hawaii State Chapter, 4155 Diamond Head Road, Honolulu, HI 96816, or to the American Red Cross, P. O. Box 37243, Washington, D.C. 20031. Internet users may make a secure online credit card contribution by visiting www.redcross.org. |
"Suddenly the building is shaking, and people are screaming," the 33-year-old St. Louis High graduate recalled by telephone from his suburban townhouse in Bothell, east of the city.
"Being from Hawai‘i, I didn’t know what to do — you don’t practice for these things in school the way they do. And when the other people immediately said get under the desks, I said, ‘No way, get me out of this ancient building.’ "
Komine was one of several former Hawai‘i residents who felt the impact from the major earthquake.
Kerry Wallace, a student at the University of Washington in Seattle, said "the earthquake hit hard and I was surprised our house came through it so well, except for a few things falling from shelves and walls.
"It lasted for quite a while. I was initially standing in a bedroom doorway but then the shaking became very violent and I ran out the back door to be safe," Wallace said. "It was pretty scary."
Former Hawai‘i resident Linda Robertson said the quake was felt as far south as Portland, where she lives. "We sure felt that ‘quake down here," Robertson said. "We felt it roll through our downtown office building — built in the 1800s- for about 25 seconds. We grabbed the walls to steady ourselves as we watched the floors and desks shake."
Meanwhile, some Hawai‘i residents with family and friends in the Seattle area were shaken emotionally.
"I started praying," Jenny Yukimura of Lihu‘e said with a tremor in her voice, "and I hope there aren’t too many aftershocks."
Yukimura, a retired state social worker, was able to reach her daughter-in-law, Hinda, in Edmonds, Wash., north of Seattle, and learned she and son John were OK. "Hinda said she was out in the yard and didn’t really feel it, except the dog started to bark, and all the dogs started barking," Yukimura said.
"And when she walked into the house, all the cabinet doors were open and there were things on the floor."
Barbara Smith, principle of Benjamin Parker Elementary School in Kane‘ohe, was worried as soon as her husband called her at work, which he rarely does. Her son, Francis, a Punahou graduate who went to the University of Puget Sound after leaving Hawai‘i, and now is an account executive for a staffing company, lives and works in Bellevue east of Seattle.
"I just prayed that he was all right," Smith said. "I turned on the radio, and the radio station said that at this time they were reporting no loss of life or limb. Then I felt it was going to be all right, I felt better after that."
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