Wed Feb 28 18:54 2001 GMT and all is well. 31 seconds later, the 6.8 Nisqually Quake centered about 11 miles NE of Olympia rocked Western Washington! Eight counties are declared disaster areas.

For years, geologists and emergency managers have been predicting this would happen. Because of the warnings, neighborhood programs have been established, business plans put into place and ARES/RACES/ACS teams have drilled and exercised both with and without those they serve. Now it was time to see if all that preparation would pay off.

In much of the affected area cell and landline phones were overloaded, power went out and people found themselves in gridlock, almost instantaneously. US West estimated that 60 million calls were initiated in

Western Washington, on the day of the quake. The overall number of calls for the 24-hour period was at least 6 times normal. Citizens calling 911 caused part of the phone problem either asking "Are we having an earthquake?" or telling the 911 call taker "We are having an earthquake!" Kitsap County’s emergency manager, Phyllis Mann observed that her message of "Drop, cover and hold" has been morphed into "Drop, cover, hold and dial."

It was soon apparent that there were "Hot spots" of damage. Some communities never lost power or phone service. The area’s major airport, Sea-Tac, temporarily lost the ability to control aircraft when the control tower’s ¾ inch windows shattered and the interior was reduced to shambles. One of the controllers stayed under a desk and continued to talk to incoming aircraft. Boeing Field took a hit that closed their main runway for a week. King County’s 800 MHz. radio system was overwhelmed. Roads and sidewalks buckled. The dome in the state capital building cracked. 30 miles from the epicenter, a 2 million gallon capacity water tank broke its steel seismic tie down straps!

The scientists say this was not the "Big one!" The monetary cost of this earthquake may exceed $2 billion but this was not a catastrophic event. The Nisqually Quake was 49 km (30 miles) deep. Had it been closer to the surface the damage would have increased significantly. Many businesses that closed on the day of the quake reopened the next business day. Bridges were inspected and quickly placed back in service as structural engineers determined them to be safe. The transportation infrastructure remained largely intact. Less than a dozen bridges, ramps and overpasses are out of commission for an extended period. None collapsed! The state statistics show one death and 407 quake related injuries. A week after the quake only 4 people were still hospitalized, three serious and one critical. The majority of the building damage occurred in commercial and government structures. Residential damage assessment conducted in the first four days by the American Red Cross listed 110 single-family homes and apartments destroyed and 126 other single family homes and apartments with major damages. Many others suffered cosmetic damage. The Red Cross opened 7 shelters on the day of the disaster. Four days later they were all closed.

Detailed information on the quake’s effects can be found at http://maximus.ce.washington.edu/~nisqually/. For a map showing this event, consult the web page at http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/010228185431.HTML. Additional links can be found at http://www.wa.gov/wsem/site-general/nisqually-eq-info.htm.

Hundreds of Hams self-activated, and got pages or phone calls to respond. Nets were activated per the local area plans and contact established with city, county and state emergency management. Amazingly, very few repeaters failed (3 or 4). Many local nets remained on their repeaters.

The U.S. Coast Guard's Seattle Vessel Traffic System (VTS) temporarily lost its ability to control vessel traffic in Puget Sound when the personnel in the Seattle Vessel Traffic Center evacuated their building following the February 28 earthquake. The system was inoperable for about 1 hour until it was partially restored by transferring the operation to the USCG Cutter MIDGET berthed at Pier 36 in Seattle. When the quake hit there were approximately 73 vessels in the system. Without adequate radio communications capability to cover all of the Puget Sound Area or phone service, the Captain of the Port was not able to adequately communicate with vessels underway in the Straits of Juan de Fuca or Puget Sound and warn them of the potential hazards following the earthquake. Fortunately, LT Russ Read, N7HOV established a working relationship with the King County Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) 2 years ago. Within 10 minutes of the earthquake LT Read joined Rick Hodges, KB7TBF, the King County ARES Emergency Coordinator on the King County damage assessment net. Critical information was passed from the net to the Captain of the Port and factored into the Coast Guard's response to the earthquake. Shortly thereafter LT Read came up on the K7LED repeater and passed 2 messages to Bob Knight, W7MZO in Kirkland. W7MZO relayed the traffic to the state Emergency Operations Center (EOC) via the Washington State Emergency Net (WSEN) on 3987 KHz. The messages informed the Canadian VTS that Seattle VTS was inoperable due to the earthquake and would be off line until further notice. The Coast Guard also requested Canadian VTS to instruct all deep draft vessels bound for the U.S. waters of Puget Sound to go to anchor until further notice. The Captain of the Port was quite pleased when LT Read reported 15 minutes later that the information had been passed to their Canadian counterparts who then passed it to vessels inbound to U. S. waters.

Marina Zuetell, N7LSL, DEC for Medical brought up her net and established contact with most of the Puget Sound hospitals. Reports were received from a total of eleven hospitals in King County, three in Kitsap County, one in Mason County, and a relay concerning one in Pierce County. In addition, reports from the Puget Sound Blood Center and Bergen Brunswig Pharmaceutical Co. were received. Thirty Amateurs participated in the Medical net during the four hours of activation. Many were team members who have practiced and trained for this kind of a response. Others were individuals who wanted to help – the emergent volunteers, who provided information concerning traffic, damage reports, offers of equipment, and assistance in surveying a hospital for damage. N7LSL said, "Those who responded did a fantastic job. I am very proud of them – they performed the job they were trained to do, and did it very well."

Red Cross shelters and chapter houses were manned and supported in several counties. Damage assessment teams were provided with Amateur Radio communicators for several days after the quake.

The state EOC received several messages via APRS!

Eastern Washington, especially Spokane County emergency management and Hams activated and were available for support.

Radio Depot (the local Ham store) reported a newly licensed Ham purchased his first radio just after the quake. Two other Hams updated their equipment on the day of the quake.

Many of those who operated mobile wished for more installed equipment.

Things that worked

Some cell phones have a digital port on them for Internet access. Even though the voice side of the instrument would not work due to system overloading, the digital port worked without a problem.

DSL remained operational even in areas where landlines were inaccessible for several hours. Pay phones work.

We need to reinforce, with verbal and written documentation, the protocols for activation and response. When the GROUND SHAKES, don’t wait for someone to call you on the telephone or page you. Know your Net Control frequencies, how to program your radio, and check in to the Net to see if and where you are needed. If you work in a different community or county from where you live, be familiar with the ARES/RACES/ACS frequencies in both places.

Post earthquake vehicular traffic moves at a snail’s pace – or slower.

Cell phones are poor emergency management tools during the first several hours of an earthquake even if the system is intact (Surprise!). After the Northridge Earthquake, Cell phones were the only commercial system that stayed up. Ours did not. There has been a lot of talk about how cell phones will replace Ham Radio because everyone has a phone, and our use in an emergency will be reduced because of it. Obviously not true! Radio was the only communications out of some counties for a while. Hams were operating most of those radios!

The radio end of transmission lines (coax) must be labeled. Otherwise valuable time will be wasted making the determination which radio will work on the associated antenna.

Headsets can be both a blessing and a hindrance.

Credentialing and facility orientation needs to be standardized at similar organizations such as hospitals. Facility security personnel, in some locations, are unfamiliar with the radio team and its purpose.

When passing NCS (Net Control Station) responsibilities, it must be clear to the station receiving the responsibility that they are the NCS.

If you have equipment installed in places like school districts and fire stations etc., the effort must be made to inspect and operate the equipment on a regular basis. This will avoid comments like, "that radio has not

worked since shortly after it was installed." or "I had to re-program all the channels back into memory." Additionally, operating instructions need to be available for each radio.

Even if you have a plan to relieve your operators, they must be tracked and made to take a break.

Volunteers need to have pre-assigned positions.

Having the ARRL’s Field Resources Manual in your possession has limited value if the blanks haven’t been filled in with the local net information etc.

Some areas could not have manned a second shift. Many volunteers are not available on the day after the event because they have employment commitments. We need more operators who are willing to be involved as emergency communicators. These folks need to be willing to train and participate in drills and exercises.

Our situation would have been considerably different if this were a catastrophic event. Bridges and roads would have been in much worse shape. Loss of public communication systems would have been much more wide spread. Public safety communications would have been impacted more heavily. Repeaters would not have faired so well. Simplex frequencies would be at a premium. We would not have enough trained emergency communicators to answer the call and very little time to train emergent volunteers. Digital modes would be required for both short and long haul communications.

Back to the preparation phase. Review your unit’s response to the earthquake with an eye toward improving your readiness. Awareness is high in the post disaster period. This is the time to promote Amateur Radio. Offer classes to all who are interested. Recruit everyone who has an interest into your emergency communications unit. Provide meaningful training to your unit. Include served agencies in as many training opportunities as possible. Encourage all ARES/RACES/NTS members to enroll in the ARRL’s Emergency Communications Certifications course of instruction.

The State RACES Officer, Jim Sutton, WA7PHD, was very favorably impressed by the professionalism of the Hams who supported the community. Jim Pace, K7CEX, District 4 DEC summed it up this way, "I am very proud of my EC/ROs and their Teams. I can sleep well, knowing that all of our training and drilling was for good reason. They were there when needed - and will be in the future." I could not say it better myself. To all who made the Amateur Radio response a success – thank you very much! You earned the right to be very proud of our effort.