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Ashland girls missed quake By Melissa Martin The Ashland High School girls basketball team was 20 minutes into its tournament game Wednesday in Portland when the earthquake hit. Coach Heather Roberts and her players were too busy concentrating on trying to beat Corvallis to realize the earth was shaking beneath their shoes. Help from the valley Two American Red Cross volunteers from Medford headed to the Seattle area on Wednesday to help in earthquake relief efforts. "We�ve got eight more (volunteers) ready to go should they be needed from Medford and Grants Pass," said Terry Haines, emergency services director for the Rogue Valley Chapter of the Red Cross. The pair of local volunteers, whom Haines didn�t identify, took with them an emergency response vehicle, which they will use to deliver food, supplies and conduct "mass feedings" as needed at Red Cross shelters set up in the area. Donations to help in the relief effort are welcome. Haines said the most useful kind of help is the green kind � money. "I know it�s going to cost money, so if people want to donate, just send it to American Red Cross Disaster Relief" and put note in the memo area of the check earmarking the money for Seattle, Haines said. Donations should be sent to the Rogue Valley Chapter of the American Red Cross, 60 Hawthorne St., Medford, OR 97504. But outside the domed stadium at the University of Portland, where teams from Ashland, South Medford and Crater high schools are competing in the Class 4A state girls basketball tournament, the ground was rumbling. Medford sportscaster Joe Brett was walking to his truck to fetch radio equipment for the KCMX-AM (580) radio broadcast of South Medford�s match with Jesuit Wednesday afternoon. "At first, it felt like I stubbed my toe," said Brett, of Table Rock Sports Broadcasting in Medford. "I lost my balance a little bit and as I righted myself, there was a parking lot attendant outside as well, and he and I looked at each other and instantly, I thought, �It could only be one thing.� " People who had been walking outside the arena known as the Chiles Center gathered to share suspicions that were soon confirmed when Brett turned on his truck radio and heard a news report of the magnitude 6.8 earthquake. "The earth moved," Brett said. "It felt like it rolled for six to eight seconds." Brett said the Ashland players, who started their Wednesday game at 10:30 a.m., didn�t feel the quake that hit at 10:55 a.m. near Olympia, Wash., about 130 miles away. "Ashland�s coach, Heather Roberts, didn�t even know there had been an earthquake until the game was over," Brett said. Ashland photographer Jim Freeberg was poised with his camera on the sidelines in the Chiles Center when the quake struck. "I didn�t know what was going on, but people started coming up to me saying, �Did you feel it? Did you feel it?� " Freeberg said. "I should recognize it because I lived in the Santa Barbara area, which is known for earthquakes." Across the Willamette River on the 10th floor of Doernbecher Children�s Hospital, Medford dentist Hal Borg and his wife, Robin, were with their 3-year-old daughter, Abi, who was recovering from surgery. "It felt like heavy rolls, like you are in an ocean swell," Borg said. "It just kept swelling for about 25 seconds. I knew right away we were in an earthquake." Electrical and telephone services were not disrupted at the hospital, which is on a hill at the Oregon Health Sciences University campus. "Doernbecher is a newer building, so it handled the earthquake well," Borg said. Borg remembers the 6.0 earthquake that rocked Klamath Falls on Sept. 20, 1993, and the 4.4 aftershock that rattled Southern Oregon in November 1994. So does Brett, who was with his son at the slot car track in Medford during the 1994 aftershock. "All of the cars were shaking on the shelves," Brett recalls. "But that was more the building moving than the floor. In this quake, the earth moved. You didn�t feel stable under your feet." Reach reporter Melissa Martin at 776-4497, or e-mail [email protected] Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.