February 28, 2023
2023-02-28T00:00:00
Nisqually Earthquake (2001)
Tuesday, February 28, 2023
Although 400 were injured and one died when the Nisqually Quake of 2001 shook the Cascadia Subduction Zone, in Anacortes the primary casualty was the Morrison Mill smokestack (with lesser damage to some walls, sidewalks and piers). At a magnitude of 6.8, the Puget Sound area had not experienced an earthquake on that scale since 1965, and President George W. Bush classified the area affected as a disaster area. A large, X-shaped crack doomed the Morrison Mill Smokestack, the last mill stack remaining from the city’s industrial history. The stack was imploded, spectacularly, a few days after the earthquake.