Tuesday marks 22 years since the Nisqually earthquake. Here’s what WA residents remember

When the shaking began, Terry Raettig had just driven into town for a dental appointment. The long rectangular hallway had turned into an “oscillating parallelogram.”

Eric Knight was an 8th-grade science teacher at Stewart Middle School in Tacoma. He was listening to a pair of students rattle off “improbable explanations” as to why they would be late for their next class (again) when the tables and chairs suddenly started moving side to side.

Janet Swanson was driving northbound on Martin Way when it felt like she had two flat tires or a broken axle. She tried to pull into a Texaco garage, but a group of people rushed out into the street and stood in her way. That’s when she realized what was happening.

These are just a few of the thousands of stories people have to tell about the 6.8 magnitude Nisqually Earthquake that shook south Puget Sound on Feb. 28, 2001.

It was the strongest quake to rattle the region since a 6.7 magnitude earthquake in 1965. Over two decades after the Nisqually earthquake, Washingtonians still remember precisely where they were and what happened when the earth rumbled beneath their feet for nearly a minute.

We asked readers last week to recount their memories of the quake and where they were when it hit as we reach the 22nd anniversary on Tuesday. Here’s what you told us:

Larry Kronquist - West Olympia

“I wasn’t feeling well that morning and was still in bed, having called in sick to work. So I was upstairs in bed when the quake hit. It was certainly frightening, and a lot of stuff came off shelves and onto the floor, but I stumbled downstairs afterward, and I was just stunned by what had happened.

I have my computers protected by UPS (uninterruptible power supplies), and they were all beeping because the power went out. I was in such a stunned state of mind that it literally took me several minutes to comprehend why there was all this beeping!”

Tiffany Lucas - North of Tenino in Thurston County

“I was in college and was 20 years old but didn’t have school that day. I was actually talking to an old boyfriend on the cordless phone, and I felt what I thought was a large sonic boom. I heard my mom yell, ‘We’re having an earthquake!’ I realized how bad things were and started screaming into the phone in my boyfriend’s ear. He was like, ‘What’s the matter?’ I yelled, ‘You don’t feel that!?’

Objects were flying off the wall and hitting me in the head. The house was rocking and bucking. The house was destroyed on the inside. Furniture was toppled everywhere. A bottle of iodine spattered in one of the bathrooms looking like an ax murder. But needless to say, I hung up on my boyfriend.”

Derek Henry - Tacoma

“I was 18 at the time, setting up for an RV expo at the exhibition center in Seattle. The funny thing is, about 10 minutes prior to the quake, I remember looking up at the high ceilings and considering, ‘I wonder what would happen if there was an earthquake here.’ It wasn’t long after that the large concrete slabs that made up the floor started waving, almost like water. My brain took a moment to process what was happening before realization hit.

A semi-retired coworker that had two knee replacements went running by as quickly as he could. I was soon on his trail. We made it outside just in time to watch the brick siding from an adjacent building demolish a van that was parked beneath it. I spent an hour on my Nokia phone afterward trying to get through to my sister’s school, a brick structure built in the 20s, to confirm her safety. Unfortunately, everyone else around the area had similar ideas, which clogged all the lines.

After returning inside, we came to find that the large RVs that had been parked several feet apart had collided with the violent force of the earthquake. Definitely a day I will remember.”

Brent Kabat - Olympia, teacher at Olympia High School in 2001

“My class was in an old-style computer lab using computers with big CRT monitors. I was typing, and my keyboard and monitor started shaking. I was in the middle of saying, ‘Hey, I think this is an…’ I looked up mid-sentence, and all my students were not to be seen “...earthquake,’ I said, finishing my sentence.

All 30 of them were already under the tables taking cover. So, yes, those drills we do work! I never had to say a thing, making me the last person in the room to get under my desk.”

Janet Ann - Tacoma, lived in Sumner in 2001

“My husband and I were off work. We were leaving the next day to fly to China to adopt our daughter. The longer the quake continued, I knew the chances of us getting out of SeaTac the next day were getting smaller and smaller. We had waited so long to meet our baby! That was the longest 45 seconds of my life.

I was right. Very few planes went out for international flights for several days. But fortune smiled on us, and our flight was the only international flight that made it out the day after the quake. I like to tell my now-grown-up daughter how we were almost late picking her up.”

Mary Stanton-Anderson – University Place

“Our golden retriever Duncan became very agitated and started to whine -- and then the shaking started, so Duncan and I huddled under the desk. True story: Animals DO sense quakes before we can.”

Katie Agren - Olympia, attended Yelm High School in 2001

“I was in math class at Yelm High School. That was my senior year. The classroom was under the stadium, and the first thing we heard was the clapping of the stadium chairs above. I felt dizzy and thought I was having a vertigo episode until I realized everyone else was feeling it too.

The shaking intensified, and our teacher, Mr. Baker, screamed for everyone to take cover. I got under my desk and held my hands tightly over my head. The shaking seemed to last forever, and I realized my desk was no longer above me - it had scooted across the floor. I crawled to get back under it and held it over my head. I was certain the stadium was about to collapse on top of us.

Suddenly, the shaking stopped, and we ran out of the building. I looked frantically for my sister and friends. Students just started leaving campus, and traffic was terrible to get out of the lot. It took me hours to get home, and I was relieved to find little damage - just a few pictures knocked off the wall.”

Marc Jones – Olympia, worked for Intercity Transit in 2001

“I joined the others who had ducked under the tables. I was the senior transit planner. Of the three roads our routes used to get to the westside, two of them (Fourth Avenue Bridge and Deschutes Parkway) were put out of commission by the quake. Also, parts of Martin Way had collapsed. We had to do a lot of scrambling to figure out reroutes to keep the buses running.

One thing that came out of the event was Olympia finally got the federal funding needed to replace the already crumbling old Fourth Avenue Bridge. Also, as it did to many other folks, the quake did a lot of damage to my house. FEMA helped cover the repairs.”

Maryanne Bell – Ruston, worked in Seattle in 2001

“There was construction going on around the building and a crane in the parking lot that I could see from my office window. When the first impact shuddered the building, I remember thinking, ‘that crane is going to break my window glass.’ But then the violent rocking started, and we all ran toward door frames.

My boss was from Chicago and probably hadn’t had a whole lot of earthquake drills because I looked across the hallway, and he was hanging onto a makeshift cubicle frame. We yelled at him to come over to where we were. At its scariest… I remember a flash of dread – that my boss would be the last face I saw instead of my sweet baby boy, and I prayed I would see my child again.

After an eternity, we all evacuated down to the parking lot. My nanny in Tacoma grabbed two toddlers and ran outside and sat in the middle of her large lawn, where she told them they were playing a game – bless her heart!”