On February 28th, the Puget Sound region was rocked by an earthquake, later named the Nisqually Quake after it's epicentre on the Nisqually Delta, a little north of Olympia and south of Seattle. Overall damage was minor, though some older buildings in Seattle had issues. I was on my way home from the dentist when it struck. At first I thought it was an issue with the car (had been back for a minor suspension recall the week before), but quickly realised it was an earthquake. Then thought how nice it was that I had finished with the dentist at the time!
Fortunately I escaped any damage from the earthquake. Apart from this crooked picture, I also had a couple of knick knacks fall over, with neither of them breaking.
Starbucks' headquarters building is located on First Avenue South, in the so called sodo district, so named as being south of the dome where the dome is the former Kingdome, which was demolished last year. Much of this area is filled-in land, and is thus more sensitive to earthquakes, by the process of liquifaction, meaning the soil looses its strength and has the consistency of wet concrete.
This is an old building, which has had extensive retro-fitting to survive earthquakes. Overall, it did quite well, but a burst water pipe caused a significant amount of internal damage.
Notice the missing right hand side of the clock tower, and the top floor corner section, as shown in the next images. There is also damage at the base of the building, in the second column of windows to the right of the clock tower. Part of the wall fell off; however, the wall is not load bearing, so there is no danger of the building collapsing.
A close up of a corner of the building which did not quite make it. There is also a crack further down - it's just visible on the larger version.
Close up of the clock tower.
A couple of blocks further north (closer to downtown), with another building showing signs of distress. This was the area of greatest damage in Seattle.
A close up of the missing wall.