Tuesday, April 24, 2001 - 12:00 a.m. Pacific

Some shaky as Capitol reopens

By David Postman Seattle Times political reporter

OLYMPIA - The Capitol was reopened yesterday after more than $1 million in emergency repairs and will be home again to the Legislature when it reconvenes in special session tomorrow.

But stabilizing loose marble and cracked plaster is easier than calming nerves still shaky from the February quake. For that, engineers and architects will give way to counselors called in to talk with lawmakers, staff members and others.

"Each person I see I ask, `Where were you when the earthquake happened and did you think you were going to die?' and every one of them thought they were going to die," said Lindsey Schutter, a crisis-intervention specialist with South Sound Mental Health Services.

The organization's Crisis Resolution Services, based in Olympia, is doing group and individual counseling with people expected to return to work this week in the Legislative Building, as the Capitol is officially known.

"It doesn't mean that everybody has post-traumatic stress disorder," Schutter said. "But you are dealing with the aftermath stress."

The Capitol was full of lawmakers, staff members, lobbyists and visiting school children when the quake hit Feb. 28. About 450 people work in the building, including the governor, secretary of state, auditor and treasurer.

The 73-year-old building has been closed because the 6.8 quake cracked exterior stonework and shifted massive columns under the masonry dome. Widely recognized as the state's most prominent government building, it is praised as a leading example of the imperial classic tradition of architecture, with a self-supporting dome that is one of the largest and one of the last to be built in the world.

The columns have since been secured with huge steel bands. The loose stones are supported by scaffolding.

Inside the building, chandeliers were knocked loose and plaster cracked. The chandeliers have been removed.

In the House of Representatives chambers, steel beams were erected along a badly damaged curved wall behind the rostrum. A plywood wall covers the supports, which are secured with 7,000 pounds of sandbags, said Andy Stepelton, senior property manager for the Department of General Administration.

Outside the Senate, an archway of 2x4s holds up marble panels the earthquake loosened. Large, plaster eagles looking over the House and Senate chambers also had to be secured.

For the last seven weeks the Legislature has been meeting in makeshift chambers in the House and Senate office buildings across from the Capitol.

The governor worked out of the Department of Labor and Industries building in Tumwater, and other statewide officials were sent to office buildings in the area.

Yesterday morning, the Capitol was open for all comers for the first time since the quake. The ground-floor cafeteria was back in operation as lawmakers and legislative staff members finished moving back in.

There were still cracks visible on plaster walls, particularly in the back hallway of the House chambers where there are holes big enough to fit a fist through.

"It's a little bit weird," said co-deputy House clerk Sharon Haywood. "We know it's just cosmetic," she said of the plaster wall covering. "But it's a little unsettling."

Linda Mitchell was moving back into Lt. Gov. Brad Owen's office, which sustained some of the worst interior damage. When the quake hit, an overhead fluorescent-light fixture came crashing down on her desk, sending her computer monitor into where she would have been sitting.

But Mitchell was out of the office at the time. She said yesterday she had no fears about returning to work, other than having to clean out the refrigerator that had grown moldy during the past seven weeks.

The work done on the Capitol since the quake was just to make the building safe enough to be occupied temporarily.

About $20 million of permanent repairs still need to be done. The state is also planning a major rehabilitation of the building that could cost up to $100 million.

Stepelton and a structural engineer will meet with legislators today and tomorrow to discuss the damage and repairs and explain how the building withstood the quake.

"We want them to know the building held up well and it was a safe place to be," Stepelton said.

It certainly didn't sound that way during the quake.

Schutter said everyone she has counseled has mentioned what the quake sounded like in the Capitol. She said being in the old, massive stone building added to people's trauma.

But who the people are is also making it hard for some to return, she said.

"A lot of these people are strong people, and a lot of what they are struggling with is not having control," Schutter said. She said it's important for people nervous about returning to pamper themselves.

"If your thing to relax is taking a bath, do that," she said. "If going back to the Capitol means you need to leave every half-hour, take a walk and get a breath of fresh air because you can't handle being in the building, you need to do that.

"If you really felt like your life was in danger when that earthquake hit, then what you're feeling is real."

-- Anonymous, April 24, 2001