Hard to believe it’s been 10 years since the earth shook beneath us. KING 5 put up videos of Feb. 28, 2001, and the aftermath on their site. Here’s one that surveys the damage downtown:
Since the quake, Wallingford has become one of three Seattle neighborhoods that kicked off preparations for the next emergency, whether it’s natural or manmade. See more information on Office of Emergency Management’s site.
We’d love to hear from readers who were in Wallingford on the day of the quake and may recall any damage or other details. Some responses are on our Facebook page.
We checked in with Mary Heim, the former Wallingford Community Council who’s headed up Wallingford’s emergency preparedness for a few years, to get her story of the 2001 quake. She wrote:
I work at home but just so happened to be in a meeting in SeaTac that morning. My husband was working over in Redmond, and my daughter was in Kindergarten (Spanish immersion classroom when it hit) at John Stanford International School. Luckily, it was not the subduction earthquake event that is possible and we were all able to get home just fine.
I got in the car and was listening to the radio for info before driving back and did not try to make any phone calls for a couple of hours until stuff died down a bit, didn’t want to tie up emergency lines. Ironically, a huge percentage of the calls coming into 911 were “Hey, I think we just had an earthquake…”, DUH! Had trouble calling my husband in Redmond but got a call through to my Mom in KY to let her know that we were OK. That out of area contact thing really works, the local circuits were still busy but got the out of state call through instead.
Funny aside: Talking with my daughter that evening at dinner, we asked how it was for her and the other kids during the quake. She said they all did the “drop, cover, and hold” under the tables. Some kids were scared and crying a bit, but she didn’t. After it stopped, they all went outside to the playground for awhile then back inside. Out of curiosity, I asked if her teacher had given instructions in Spanish or English. Her response was an incredulous, “Mmmmoooommmmmmm, we were in the SPANISH classroom…you KNOW we only speak Spanish in there!” Senorita Maria never broke form.
Heim also brought us up to date on neighborhood emergency preparedness:
Current planning: There is a citywide leadership group that meets monthly, plans exercises and is working on how the emergency communication hubs in the neighborhoods would function during a major civil emergency.
There is a new website under construction where several groups (Green Lake, Wallingford, View Ridge, Phinney, Fremont, Ravenna Eckstein…) are going to be accessed from one site. There will be a landing page and then separate sections for the individual neighborhoods.
She also mentioned the Wallingford Community Senior Center plans to host a potluck in a few weeks that “will be a chance for people to connect, find out about the citywide stuff that has been going on and how to plug into the process locally. Debbie Goetz from the Office of Emergency Management will be there to pass on some great tips and answer questions.” We’ll pass along more information on that gathering when plans are firmed up.
