A Whole Lot of Shaking Going On

The recent earthquake in Japan is another harsh reminder that our Earthly home is a volatile, unpredictable planet. But with no real way to escape our hostile environment- short of moving to a less hospitable one- so, we adapt and shoulder on, as man has done for thousands of years, and make do when caught in the middle of a Mother Nature hissy-fit.

 

Thanks to the Internet, and images shown almost instantaneously on TV via satellite delivery, the world has had a gruesome front row look at the carnage and devastation. And while prayers continue to go out to the Japanese people coping with the catastrophe, in places spared this natural disaster the point s well taken that tomorrow is never guaranteed.

 

On the third rock from the sun, no matter where home is under the sun, it could be us next.

 

But as out of control as things seem at the moment in the Orient, somehow I still choose to believe that even in the midst of the crisis, there or anywhere, that God remains in control.

However, today's post is not about Japan's recent calamity, or the closer to home Loma Prieta earthquake during the 1989 Bay Bridge World Series. No, today my story centers on the only earthquake I actually felt, lived and broadcast through. Yes, broadcast- that's not a typo. Come with me now, back to North Idaho and KSPT and the fall of 1983…

…For a small town radio station, the morning show hours at KSPT Sandpoint were intense. From the time I went on at 5 a.m. there was a lot of stuff going on and to stay on top of.  If I was tired when I got into the building- almost always- the jolt of quickly paced activity usually had the cobwebs shaken out before the first hour was over.

 

But the cobwebs, the building, the ground and everything else was shaking on the morning of October 28, 1983.

 

It was 7:07 in the a.m. and the hourly Mutual Network News had finished two minutes before. I’d come on right after the newscast ended and read the weather report. It was a gorgeous Friday morning, mild for late October, and after telling the 7 am crowd the current temperature was already at 55 degrees, I started up Juice Newton's "Queen of Hearts" on turntable # 1 for the first song of the hour.

 

Then, with the mic off and a three and a half minute record playing, I sat back to read the sports page in the morning paper and sip my coffee. 

But 25 seconds into the song, I noticed a faint rumble. I was like an overloaded big rig had shuddered past us out on the highway. This was different, though. The vibration felt like it was right underneath my feet. But it quickly intensified; became louder and then the whole building began to shake.

I heard a picture in the lobby fall to the floor. I turned in my chair and looked behind me, out the studio window. The parking lot was doing its best imitation of a small ocean; waves rolled across the flat landscape and my car was gently bobbing up and down, like a boat docked on a choppy lake.

In the confusing chaos, nothing I saw made any sense, and it took another second or two to understand what was happening. When the brain at last caught up with the optical information the little light finally clicked on just as News Director, Dave Wessell yelled out “Earthquake!” 

I yelled back. “I know!”

Glancing back at the turntable, even though the room and radio station were doing the Rumba, miraculously the record kept playing flawlessly. The noise and trembling motion hadn't got any worse, but wasn’t subsiding either. 

In its wake, my coffee cup had plunged to the carpet spilling its contents. A stack of carts that had been sitting on the console had crashed landed into a jumbled pile on the floor. The pen I'd been using had rolled away someplace, never to be seen again. It seemed like forever, but less than a minute after it'd started, the up and down rolling abated, the Earth came to rest on its axis, and the world settled back into its normal rhythm and place.

And immediately every phone in the place began to light up.

The question on everybody’s mind was the same; either “What was that?” or “Did we just have an earthquake?” Cutting off Juice Newton two thirds of the way through her song, I shoved my headphones on and opened the mic. I think everybody knew what had happened, even if it hadn’t been “confirmed” by experts, but I stated the obvious anyway. "Folks I think we just had an earthquake".

Then I started babbling on about what I’d seen and felt. I was kind of hyper with excitement, though; so to reel me in and make it more of a two-way conversation than one-sided dissertation Dave came in and joined me at the guest mic. He offered his thoughts and what he'd picked up off the wire service and from that point on we were completely in-sync and on top of the story.

Dave Wessell had only been at KSPT a couple weeks, and six months later would become the boss and end up firing me. But that morning we were best buds working the trenches together. Funny what happens when, out of the blue you're thrown into a professional foxhole with someone. After the earthquake, it was a very fast moving and intense morning, and to pull off what we had to do with maximum skill and minimal gibberish, I needed Dave and he needed me. And somehow we made it work. We created great radio

First thing we did was chuck the format. Then we took calls and for the next several hours talked to listeners offering their own perspective on the event. When Dave or I needed a break, I put on another record. By then, other staffers had arrived at work, so we were getting help with the phones, allowing Dave and I a chance to leave the studio for a few minutes to catch our breath. I went outside or to the break room for more coffee, but, ever the newshound, Dave always used the time to go grab fresh wire copy.

The earthquake was the talk of the town and, really, the entire Northwest- and as the morning went on the entire country. According to the U.S. Geological Service, the quake registered a magnitude 7.1 on the Richter scale; its epicenter located near the base of Mt. Borah and the town of Mackay, Idaho, in the southeast part of the state. So even though it was centered hundreds of miles from the radio station, we’d been shaken pretty damn good. Not only had the trembler rattled Sandpoint and Bonner County, it was felt all over Idaho, as well as parts of Wyoming, Oregon, Washington State, Utah, Montana, Nevada, even Northern California.

However, the only “casualty” at KSPT was the portrait in the lobby that fell. Despite the big shake, the old building held together well, and emerged from the quake completely intact and undamaged. In the city of Sandpoint, other than a few things falling off walls and shelves, there was no damage. And my house was exactly as I’d left it earlier in the morning. But nearer the quake’s epicenter, there were reports of several damaged buildings in the southern part of Idaho, and 2 people were killed in the city of Challis

Dave and I stayed on the air till noon that day, and the story began petering out- at least as it pertained to North Idaho- by mid-afternoon. It wasn't till the excitement had quieted down did I realize if I'd talked about 25 seconds longer, I could’ve been actually broadcasting the earthquake live, as it struck. Oh well. At least I was on the air as it rolled through, can tell you about it now, and, along with Dave Wessell- and the radio station- was able to instantly become a conduit of information.

That morning, KSPT was transformed into a kind of communal party line. And it was kind of cool to be the electronic sounding board as our town began sorting through their feelings about this out of the ordinary act of God, and collectively begin to process it. At least it made for an exciting time at work, that day, being at the ‘epicenter’ for local communications.

The Spokane TV channels and cable news outlets like CNN were talking about the earthquake, but we were living it on scene. And everybody within the sound of our little one thousand watt transmitter was listening. It was days like this that made me glad I chose broadcasting as a career because what we did that day, as a staff, is what radio does best- serve its community. We quite literally took the listener by the hand, and walked them gently though an extraordinary event that had either changed, altered or affected their daily lives. It was all good stuff.

My time in Sandpoint, for various reasons, was kind of a low spot in my life. The area was nice, but I missed Spokane and my friends there. Except for the few people I hung out with at work, I didn’t really know anybody in Sandpoint. But the earthquake kind of gave me a little jolt of purpose, for at least half a morning. It made me appreciate my job, the career I chose and even the place I lived. Putting aside the long hours and lack of good rest, the day’s activities were a healthy dose of adrenaline my little mind and body desperately needed.

But after the shaking stopped, I hoped it wouldn’t take another earthquake to make me feel connected, alive or making a difference again.