UPHEAVAL

April 13, 1949 11:55 a.m.

By Ginger Wiegman

Fifty one years ago, while I was shopping
for a Mother's Day gift, eight persons died
and ten thousand chimneys suddenly needed repair.

I was in Bartell's basement in downtown Seattle,
oblivious to what was happening until I started up the stairs
and breathed in a odor like the stink of rotting fish.
People were screaming, a clerk had fainted.
Broken medicine bottles, the source of the stench,
were scattered over the floor.
I stood in Bartell's entrance, enthralled
as torrents of water cascaded down a building
from a burst wooden water tank.

While I was safely cocooned in Bartell's basement,
the earth shook to a magnitude of seven point one
on the Richter Scale.
The shaking lasted for about thirty seconds and was felt in
Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, Idaho and Montana.
A twenty-three thousand square mile area.

The seism caused a rockslide on Mt. Si.
The earth opened near Greenlake.
One thousand nine hundred brick walls fractured or collapsed.
Three schools received major damage and were later condemned.

KJR's radio tower was virtually destroyed.
Books toppled off shelves
and most buildings in pioneer square were damaged.

As I searched for an appropriate gift,
buildings, bridges, columns, factory stacks,
and monuments fell.

This is the largest tremor in Puget Sound since
non Indian people started to immigrate and settle
along its shores.

Fifty one years later, I am still wondering how
it felt to be in the midst of the
nineteen forty-nine Puget Sound earthquake.

 

© December 25, 2000