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An independent newspaper
‘Bri’-nging down the honse
Oregon senior Brianne Meharry helps keep her
team loose amid the adversity. PAGE 11
Political countering
Grievances are filed against ASUO Executive hope
fuls Bret Jacobson and Matt Cook. PAGE 3
March 1,2001
Volume 102, Issue 105
Weather
today
MOSTLY CLOUDY
high 51, low 40
Northwest feels the shake of Seattle’s quake
By Luis Cabrera
Associated Press
SEATTLE — A powerful earthquake
rocked the Northwest on Wednesday,
shattering windows, showering bricks
onto sidewalks and sending terrified
crowds running into the streets of Seat
tle and Portland, Ore.
Despite the 6.8-magnitude, damage
and injuries were relatively minor,
which experts attributed to the quake’s
depth. About 75 people were treated at
hospitals in Seattle and Olympia, none
of them for critical injuries.
Still, the quake temporarily shut down
the Seattle airport, knocked out power to
hundreds of thousands of people,
cracked the dome atop the state Capitol
in Olympia and briefly trapped about 30
people atop a swaying Space Needle,
605 feet above the city.
“Everyone was panicked,” said
Paulette DeRooy, who scrambled onto a
fire escape in a Seattle office building.
The quake hit at 10:54 a.m. and was
centered 35 miles southwest of Seattle,
according to the National Earthquake In
formation Center in Golden, Colo. It was
the strongest to hit the Washington state
in 52 years.
Experts said its depth — in a fault
about 30 miles underground — spared
the Northwest catastrophic damage. Of
ficials said millions of dollars spent to
remodel buildings and highways to pro
tect against earthquakes had paid off:
Damage could run into the billions, but
that was considered light in a highly de
veloped area with more than 3 million
residents.
In contrast, the magnitude-6.7 North
ridge quake in Los Angeles in 1994
struck just 11 miles underground. It
caused an estimated $40 billion in dam
age and killed 72 people.
The Northwest quake was felt in Van
couver and other parts of British Colum
bia and in southern Oregon, 300 miles
away. Buildings in downtown Portland,
140 miles from the epicenter, swayed for
nearly a half-minute and crowds gath
ered on street corners to talk about the
quake.
Officials evacuated the city’s Mult
nomah County Courthouse, which has
not had a major retrofitting for earth
quakes.
“I thought, ’If this building goes, we’re
doomed.’ I didn’t know what to do. Do I
hide under my desk or what?” said Dee
Stewart, 46, a judicial assistant who
works on the fifth floor.
Of the 27 people treated at Seattle’s
Harborview Medical Center, at least
three had serious injuries, a spokes
woman said. Authorities said two had
been struck by falling debris.
Two Olympia hospitals treated a total
of 49 people, all with minor injuries, ex
cept for two who suffered broken bones.
President Bush asked the director of
the Federal Emergency Management
Agency, Joe Allbaugh, to travel to Seattle
to offer help.
“Our prayers are with those who were
injured and their families and with the
many thousands of people whose lives
have been disrupted,” Bush said.
Washington Gov. Gary Locke, who said
books and pictures were knocked off the
Turn to Quake, page 4
' *» ' -
Emerald
Vans ferry food staples from the Food for Lane County warehouse on Bailey Hill Road to dispatch sites all around Eugene for those in need.
Emergency food need on the rise
■ Lane County gave out nearly
500,000 food box donations last
year, up 15 percent from 2000
By Lauren Saxton
for the Emerald
Reaching deep into the back of her
small cupboard, Liz Allen shifts cans
of pinto beans and boxes of macaroni
and cheese, producing the coveted gem
she had stashed for dinner: a box of
Thai curry rice pilaf.
She sifts through a sink full of dishes,
locates a small pan and moves toward
the refrigerator. A dog wanders in and
looks at her, then another arrives. It
seems everyone is hungry.
“We have no butter,” she says. She
turns to her roommate from the open
refrigerator door, then back to the direc
tions on the box of rice. “Do you think I
could use yogurt instead?”
In the house she shares with five
roommates and two dogs, creativity is a
necessity. So is being sparse with her
resources.
Allen, a 19-year-old Lane Communi
ty College student, lives in one of 1,800
households that will wait in line this
month at the Catholic Community Ser
vices emergency food pantry at 1070
W. Sixth Ave. Just a mile from campus,
it is worlds away from the lines at Holy
Cow Cafe in the EMU or Caspian
Mediterranean Cafe on 13th Avenue.
Last year, 463,842 people in the state
received emergency food boxes. This
number is up 15 percent from the year
before, and according to the Oregon
Food Bank, the number is rising. In re
sponse to the hunger problem Oregon
encounters, the bank held a food drive,
which ends today.
The University was involved with
the drive, placing barrels for non-per
ishable food donations in buildings
around campus, such as the physics
department office in Willamette Hall
and the journalism department office
in Allen Hall.
“The University is one of the biggest
sources for food donation,” said Joe
Softich, food program manager for the
Catholic Community Services.
“Restaurants, hospitals and the Univer
sity donate food to the Food for Lane
County warehouse, then Food for Lane
County brings it to us.”
The Carson and University Inn din
ing facilities are two of the food donors
at the University. Unused food is sent
to the warehouse on Bailey Hill Road,
Turn to Food, page 3
■There was no damage, but Eugenians asked
each other all afternoon, “Did you feel the
earthquake this morning?”
By Andrew Adams and Darren Freeman
Oregon Daily Emerald
Eugene trembled and City Hall was evacuated Wednes
day morning while an earthquake in northwest Washing
ton sent bricks falling to the streets of Seattle, cracked a col
umn in the state’s capitol dome in Olympia and left
thousands of Washington residents without power.
On campus, several buildings, including Johnson Hall
and PLC were rocking, but none received damage and no
one was injured.
At 10:55 a.m., the earthquake, centered in Olympia,
Wash., with a magnitude of 6.8, sent shocks through the
Pacific Northwest, compelling the city manager’s office to
evacuate City Hall.
In her office on the ninth floor of PLC, political science
assistant professor Julie Novkov experienced the earth
quake at the top of the tallest building on campus, which is
also one of the tallest in Eugene.
She said she noticed her computer monitor starting to
shake, and when she realized what was happening, she
headed for the stairs.
“I was just processing the fact that this was an earth
Turn to Shake, page 4
Panels to highlight
annual conference
■This year’s conference wili tackle
environmental issues in more than 100 panel
discussions over the weekend
By Hank Hager
Oregon Daily Emerald
Over 3,000 students, attorneys, scientists and citizens
have begun to arrive on campus for the 19th annual Public
Interest Environmental Law Conference, beginning today
and ending March 4.
Jeff Adams, law student and conference organizer, said
issues relating to logging, activism, toxic pollutants and
labor relations are just a few of the manv that will be dis
cussed at the conference.
“It really hits on so many issues that affect almost every
one’s life,” he said.
More than 100 panel discussions are planned, Adams
said. The topics were chosen on a first-come, first-serve
basis to prevent any bias in preference, he said.
The organizers said they expect visitors from more than
30 countries to attend, and one from as far away as Mada
gascar. Law student Courtney Brown, one of last year’s or
ganizers, said the conference is the largest and oldest en
vironmental gathering in the nation.
Some of the speakers this year include Ward Churchill,
associate professor at the University of Colorado, Bill
Gould, labor law expert and Stanford professor, and Palo
Zilincik, co-founder of Slovakia’s Center for Environmen
tal Public Advocacy.
“We’ve got a tremendous mix of speakers,” law student
and organizer Erin Landis said. “Some of them are pretty
controversial so I wouldn’t be disappointed if no one
heckled them but I kind of almost expect it to happen.”
Last year proved that the conference can have heated
discussions. During what is now being referred to as the
“Hill Incident,” Julia Butterfly Hill, forest activist and tree
sitter, was heckled while delivering one of her speeches.
Hill lived for two years on a 200-foot-tall ancient red
wood tree in northern California before coming down in
exchange for an agreement by Pacific Lumber Company,
the area’s landowner, to save the area and $50,000 donated
toward university science research. Some in attendance
Turn to Environment page 4