I was sitting at my computer at 10:54 a.m. PST on February 28th, 2001 in my ground floor apartment in a ninety-year-old brick and stone building on Capitol Hill in Seattle when the Nisqually earthquake hit.

I'd been in earthquakes before, so I recognized what all the shaking was about right away. But the ones I had been in before usually lasted maybe ten or fifteen seconds and that was it. With this one, the lights went out all over the building, my computer went off. The whole building rocked and my desk drawers started sliding in and out of their own accord. It went on. And on. And on. I thought the whole bloody building was going to wind up in my lap.

"This," it occurred to me, "is going to leave a bruise!"

I lurched away from my desk and positioned myself in the doorway of the apartment (structurally, the soundest place to be, I'd heard) and watched the chandelier in the front lobby swing wildly back and forth.

On and on it went. It seemed like an eternity. Like it would never stop. And I was sure the building would start to crumble within the next few seconds. I thought about making a dash for either the front or side door of the building, but that, it occurred to me, might make my the recipient of a rain of bricks and cornices. So I stayed where I was.

Gradually, it ebbed. And became still.

Two of my upstairs neighbors came bounding down the stairs. Two young guys. They knew I was home (and wheelchair-bound), so they wanted to check to be sure I was okay (most reassuring and most appreciated). Then, they set about checking to see if they could get the lights back on (No go. The whole neighborhood was out), and then check the building for damage. Good news. Very little, easily repaired. No damage in our apartment. One lamp fell off the top of a bookcase, but it didn't break.

It turned out the quake measured 6.8 on the Richter Scale. And it lasted for about 50 seconds.

It was a doozey, lemme tell ya!! Sort of ~ um ~ unsettling.

Don Firth

P. S. And they keep talking about "The BIG One!" Whoopie!