5:00am POwer out again. Still fluctuating power levels causing problems. Neighbors have had electronics damaged by power spikes last night.

This morning fed and cafinated the local fire guys as we have power and their fire house does not. Lots of serious damage locally. Looks like the main east - west artery through Oly WA will be torn down as un safe. Also have reports of about 3 dozen county roads blocked or gone through slides.

All telecommunications are out. It took nearly 1.5 hours to obtain this connection to post and down load email. Cannot even get phone lines consisently to across town. All emails are at least not immediately bouncing now.

Local health guys (relative works there) were told last night that now we have to look out for Hanta and a couple of other diseases related to dry soil and dust. Lots of dust everywhere.

Still activity under Mt. Baker and St. Helens. No sign of magma movement, just seismic activity.

Lots of broken water lines will show up today. Had three roads near the water here shut down last night due to discovery of broken Nat gas line.

Huge, absolutely huge numbers of airplanes and helicopters all night until about 3 am. All appeared to be military. Going over to McChord from the south and east.

Couple of local ravines had their creeks seriously widened. Down the road a piece, we have a sink hole that opened up off the side of the road. The hole was over 20 feet deep when I saw it last night and it was still growing.

Several cars plowed into a sink hole on 101 yesteday as they headed toward Shelton. The Kamilchee point area (a pennisula) suffered a 'tear' that may yet make part of it into an island.

Water tables are all screwed up. We live near the top of a hill with a very deep well and we are still pumping water, but some neighbors about a mile away and down hill had their community (about 20 houses) well go dry. Looks like the aquifer just shifted. So there are some real problems. And they burned out their pump when the power came back on.

Sure to be lots of problems and lots of idiots driving around looking today.

They have to inspect hundreds of miles of pipelines today. Local airport is going to start handling small planes for seatac.

Trains are not going to run for a few days due to local track damage.

Some of our main roads have cracks over 6 inches wide running for miles down the middle of the them.

Going to be quite the day.

Still can't post. No clean lines available.

Donated my 55 gallon drum to neighbors down the way so that the cul de sac can have water this morning. Will have to run a hose down to them later this morning when we are all up.

Lots of brusing from the shaking. Bounced up and down so violently that all the joints in my legs and hips hurt from the impacts with the ground.

Will keep this open and set an automated submission perl script until it goes through.

Lots of state buildings are out of commission.

Really serious damage to State Capitol dome. Over 180 years old and cracked. One of the major columns on the top has separated and will have to be lowered down.

Lots of roads out in seattle. Major viaducts are shut down. Commute hell today.

Local cable connections are gone.

More damage showing up due to gravity and the aftershocks.

Very busy morning. Just got through on line.

State routes 302, 8 and 167 are closed in spots.

Phone hell here. Bogus rings, no calls going through. All schools in several counties are canceled.

Looks like local news is saying most state buildings shut until monday at the earliest.

Great. Now we get rain! Gonna make those slides a bitch to clean up. A couple of houses off steamboat island road fell into the sound. One more slipping this morning. Can watch it through my big telescope. Has slid about 2 feet in the last hour.

Seatac is running about 1/3 capacity incoming.

Damage to lots of water supplies.

Over 40 cell towers defunct.

More later.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001

Answers

Good to see ya!

Can barely imagine what you're coping with. Will be thinking of you folks in that area...

R

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001

Pliny,

Glad yer OK! I've never experienced an EQ. It's gotta be more than a little unsettling to have the earth moving under you!

Thank God the injuries appear to be relatively minor. Keep us poted.

Dan V.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001

Pliney since I know that area like back of hand, I really appreciate your post. Wonder how the brewery in Tumwater fared? I would imagaine the water is pretty muddy. Thanks again, REALLY appreciate it. Taz

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001

Pliney, thanks for checking in, we were worried about you yesterday.

Goes to show that building codes can go a long ways towards protecting human life, but still massive damage to deal with anyway.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001

Pliney, your post communicates the emotions you're feeling. There's a bit of excitement, a tiny frisson of fear, awe, satisfaction from helping others--a whole mosaic of information. Thanks so much for posting this. If anyone has Pliny's address, please send him the new password. Edited to add: Snort! That looks like his real address. I'll drop him a line.

-- Anonymous, March 01, 2001

From Pliny, nicked from TB:

just now a funnel cloud spotted heading toward McChord AFB from Yelm. About 30 minutes south of oly.

Seatac at 60% and that is going to be it for maybe a year. Due to control tower getting totally crashed. The tower is collapsing internally. So they are working out of a trailer as they rush to complete a tower that was already in progress.

We are being told to forget getting packages in and out in a timely fashion. Especially in oly.

I guess one cell tower company is trucking up repair supplies from CA as no way to airlift in any thing.

Oh, and today, for really the first time this winter, serious rain, wind and hail.

And now the Deschutes Parkway which is opposite the state capitol across Capitol Lake, has decided to go walkabout into the lake. Two HUGE houses evacuated as the hillside decides what it will do. This WAS the alternative road to the 4th St Bridge which is doomed to be dynamited in place as too dangerous to remove. So only a dinky one lane road to get from east to west OLY. Or detour through Tumwater.

Gonna be a very strange year.

Hell, it is strange year now.

-- Anonymous, March 02, 2001