Mid-Columbians join forces to help west side quake victims

This story was published Fri, Mar 2, 2001

By Annette Cary and Mary Hopkin
Herald staff writers

With few lingering earthquake effects in the Mid-Columbia Thursday other than clogged phone lines, area residents began working to help to the west side of the state.

The American Red Cross's Tri-City area office sent two workers and its disaster van west Thursday morning to help feed and shelter earthquake victims. About 280 people were injured and others left homeless after the largest Puget Sound-area quake in half a century hit Wednesday morning.

Three semi-truck trailers were being loaded with cots, blankets, cleaning supplies, personal hygiene items and dishes at the Umatilla Army Depot. The Red Cross has one of its seven national storage units in extra space there.

Those trucks will be sent to some of the five Red Cross shelters opened in Western Washington for earthquake victims. Those victims include elderly and disabled low-income residents from the destroyed Olympia Hotel in the capital city's downtown.

The Red Cross is accepting donations for victims of this earthquake and other disasters at 800-435-7669.

In the Tri-Cities, some residents and businesses were reporting difficulty making long distance telephone calls or connecting to the Internet Thursday.

Verizon's telephone system was not damaged by the earthquake, but lines were busier than usual, said Melissa Barran in the telephone company's Everett office. Depending on which long distance or Internet service Verizon customer's use, there was some congestion on telephone lines, she said.

Service also was hampered in parts of Eastern Washington when an underground Qwest line was accidentally cut in Moses Lake at 10 a.m. It was repaired about six hours later.

One of the few damaged buildings in the Mid-Columbia area, where some felt the quake, was an already troubled 120,000-square-foot office building at Hanford. Officially called Building 2704-HV, it's more often called the Smurf building for its bold blue color.

The building had some new cracks that appeared to be related to the quake, said Marla Marvin, director of public affairs. However, the building still was deemed safe, and workers were allowed to return there Thursday morning.

The building has sagged slightly since construction in 1994 and was plagued with cracks in the windows and walls before the earthquake.

Careful inspections of other Hanford buildings also were discovering a few minor cracks, but engineers concluded they likely were there before the earthquake.

The Washington State Department of Ecology reported none of Hanford's underground tanks with radioactive waste were damaged. However, the liquid levels in some of the tanks will be checked daily for a week.

An apparent false reading on the level of sludge in one of the tanks was reported just after the earthquake, but further measurements and recalibration of measuring devices showed the waste level unchanged.

The federal Bureau of Reclamation had dams checked within 300 miles of the quake's epicenter - including those in the Mid-Columbia - and reported no damage.

The Washington Department of Ecology issued a reminder that underground fuel tanks, waste water treatment systems and other facilities with environmental permits need to be checked. Specifically, underground fuel tanks should be checked to make sure connections between the tanks and piping remain tight.

More information is available at www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/tcp/cleanup.html on the Internet or by calling 360-407-7236.

Environmental damage caused by the quake, such as spills or releases of oil, sewage or hazardous substances should be reported to 509-575-2490.

A sarin gas leak was detected at the Umatilla Chemical Depot Wednesday during air monitoring tests after the earthquake.

Crews found the 750-pound bomb responsible for the sarin gas Thursday, but the leak was not caused by the earthquake, said spokeswoman Mary Binder.

The concrete-and-steel igloos store bombs and missiles filled with the deadly nerve agents, which are scheduled to be destroyed by incineration beginning in the latter part of 2002.

Binder said 450 bombs are stored in the igloo where the leaking bomb was detected and that crews have isolated the weapon and resealed it in a larger container, which the army calls overpacking. The bomb is being moved into a separate igloo where all overpacked weapons are stored.

Since 1984, 122 of the depot's 220,000 munitions have leaked and been overpacked.

Binder said depot crews also are also in the process of revisiting each igloo.

After Wednesday's earthquake, crews monitored the air inside each igloo. The monitoring is done without entering the buildings.

Binder said that Thursday crews began a visual inspection of each bunker to make sure all the weapons remain on stacked on pallets and undisturbed.

 

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