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2001 Nisqually Quake

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The Day the Ground Shook


On February 28th, 2001, the Pacific Northwest experienced an earthquake that was pretty significant.  I put some information here on this page about the quake...

The Particulars

Time of Occurrence (GMT): Wednesday February 28, 2001 at 18:54:32.78 Z
Time of Occurrence (PST): Wednesday February 28, 2001 at 10:54:32.78 AM

Duration 45 sec
Depth (km) 52.40
Magnitude (Mw) 6.8 - Moment magnitude from the USGS National Earthquake Information Center.

Location 47.1525N 122.7197W

    17.6 km  NE of Olympia, WA
    23.7 km WSW of Tacoma, WA
    57.5 km SSW of Seattle, WA

 
This is the "Webicorder" reading... the USGS puts the Seismic sensors in the area on the web... shortly after the quake happened, I saved the image of the quake.

The Reason

The quake was a result of the subduction of the Juan de Fuca Plate. As the North American Plate overruns the Juan de Fuca, it pushes it down, eventually back into the mantle, where it gets recycled.

This is the reason the quake was so deep, which was lucky for the entire region... even the region directly over the epicenter was 30 miles away.

What I felt

I was working at Safeco when the quake hit.  The building is "quake resistant", and it shakes quite a bit.  While that helps the building survive, it really wreaks havoc on the items inside the building... our offices, books, and computers were everywhere.

No one was hurt, of course.  The building did exactly what it was supposed to.  Even the buildings that weren't completed yet did quite well.  By the end of the day, you'd never have known it happened.

Our building shook for about 2 minutes after the quake had ended... some folks got a little seasick.

Here's what the Windows Media team recorded over at Microsoft... which is right down the road from Safeco - the next campus over.  They were working on the Media player 9's ability to record web camera information, and they managed to catch the quake on video.

Quake.WMV (~1.7mb)

You might have to right-click and pick "Save Target As...", then run the video from where you save it.

In all... it was AWESOME!

Epicenter

The epicenter of the quake was near the mouth of the Nisqually river...  Just to the North East of Olympia, the quake was felt as far away as Vancouver British Columbia, and Portland, Oregon... 

 

Shake Map


The "Shake Map" is a map generated by county by the USGS from reports around the community.  Each observation is graded by the intensity described in the report, and an average for an area is taken.  Here's the map generated by reports from the Nisqually Quake...

 

Damage Photos

Here's some damage Photos from around the area.  Some are from the USGS, some I took, and some are from TV

In Olympia
Olympia was near the epicenter, and really got hammered

A gas main caught on fire shortly after the quake (tv)

This wall collapsed on Capital Way (tv)

 

It took several weeks to repair this bridge (usgs)

There were quite a few failed structures (usgs)

 

Some areas went through some considerable lateral spreading (usgs)

 

In some situations during an earthquake, the soil acts like a liquid, and the underlying soils "boil" to the surface... that's what happened in these pictures taken in Olympia's Port district (usgs)
   
The capital dome was heavily damaged, and although it doesn't look all that bad, it almost  collapsed.  10 of the colums that hold up the dome were knocked askew. (me)

   
   
This building, which I photographed in November 2003, almost 3 years after the quake, STILL shows the damage suffered by the quake (me)

 

 

Around Seattle
Seattle was insulated a bit by distance, but the older buildings still took a beating

Some buildings have a facade along the top to make them "fancy"... a lot of times, that broke off, and rained bricks onto the cars below (tv)

 The bad thing about this sort of damage is that most auto insurance plans don't cover damage by "Acts of God"... AKA Earthquakes. (tv)

 
Even Starbucks' headquarters (which is in Seattle) was damaged (tv) Here's an example of the upper portion of an older building not responding to flexing very well (tv)
 

This building, viewed from the upper decks of Safeco Field during a game a few weeks after the quake, Suffered heavily... tnot only did the wal fail at the top of the building... the whole wall was bowed out, away from the floor joists, which were sagging quite mightily inside.  They nearly pulled the whole thing down, but as it was a historical building, they instead repaired it. (me)
 

The older sections of town got it the worst... these old brick buildings, most dating back to just after the 1906 fire, weren't built to withstand earthquakes like the modern buildings in the current business district. (me)

Older warehouses, factory buildings, and apartment homes were damaged.  Most of the damage happened in the southern portions of the city, which is where the older buildings seem to be. (me)