Back in the late ‘90s or early 2000’s, we worked in downtown Sodom on the Puget Sound (seattle) and I worked on the 36th floor of a building when we got hit by a 6.9 roller. It tore book cases in our office library that were hooked to the walls completely off the walls. Dumped huge piles of books in the floor. People were tossed around. I was under my work station as stuff fell from the ceiling, with my hand out trying to keep my computer keyboard and monitor from coming off the desk! My wife said she was under her desk also. But, she did not care about her computer as it smashed to the floor next to her. A 6.9 will leave you with brown stains in your shorts. We had people that were traumatized by the quake. They simply could not come back into the high rise. Scared the crap out of them.
36th floor—I can’t even imagine.
Many decades ago I had an office job in San Francisco (when it was an actual civilized place) and was working on the mere 6th floor when a decent size earthquake hit. It was my first one since I had moved there from the East Coast.
First thing I noticed was that the tiles beneath my feet started to separate and then move back together again...
Then I looked out the window and noticed the other buildings outside were swaying....
The locals thought nothing of it... :-)