Wolfepack, please don't take this as a rotten tomato, but given where you are working I want to emphasize one thing that should be a bigger part of your preparations: you will likely be dead or injured, and less likely to emerge from a typical Seattle quake unharmed and be able to walk home. Sure, if another Nisqually quake strikes 40 miles from us, everything will shake, but also the transportation system will remain intact, so the long walk home should remain academic. And truth be told, many Seattle Earthquakes (TM) resemble the Nisqually - disruptive more than destructive. When we have the serious earthquake we're capable of though, all hell breaks loose, and the rules of architecture are suddenly writ large on the landscape, in new and graphic detail. A building that is estimated to 'lose its outer walls but have its floors remain standing'? On Western Avenue, adjacent to the Alaskan Way Viaduct? Really?? I would be skeptical of that, and fwiw would investigate your building architecture more closely. You may be in an unreinforced masonry building, or it may have received a retrofit, which is good, but recent studies have called into question the adequacy of retrofitted URM structures. After all, your first step is to survive the quake, and get out the door, then down the street, past every other building in your vicinity. That's suddenly a bigger problem than you imagined if you are crushed beneath flood slabs. Your GHB with you. Whoever finds it will likely toss the dross and focus on whatever water, food and first aid survives.

In recent years there has been alot of study of grown motion, ground fault and shaking of different building types - the volume of work is large, and emergency management folks are sometimes working to translate this into reasonable approximations for buildings (by type) in their jurisdictions. A place to start (including bibliography) is at http://www.consrv.ca.gov/cgs/smip/docs/seminar/SMIP02/Documents/Paper6_King.pdf. Somewhat more accessible stuff is at http://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/pp1551/ - these are papers from the Loma Prieta, which is only now being extensively documented, but the physics of ground motion are generally constant across environments so there is alot to learn from strong California quakes that resemble Seattle EQs that folks haven't actually experienced in the PNW since white settlement began. Someone though needs to translate this research into reasonable block by block estimates for Seattle, so that people can begin to deal with the reality of where we have chosen to work and live. Its not as difficult as you would imagine, but still a very big task. My sense of the overall impact though is that when the Seattle Fault shakes loose, we will see far more destruction than even the current estimates (2005) imagined. Some very accessible documentation on Seattle Fault scenarios exists at http://seattlescenario.eeri.org/presentations/Ch%205%20Buildings%20-%20Pierepiekarz.pdf, and other docs to review at http://seattlescenario.eeri.org/documents.php.

Liquefaction is a special concern in the SoDo area, but also along the waterfront and Western Avenue, where substantial fill was added in the late 19th Century. Its tough to figure how specific architecture may fare in this very mixed fill environment of downtown - you may be able to spot your exact work location at http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1252/of2005-1252.pdf (warning, this is a 46MB .pdf download, very informative but very large).

Quibbling over Datrex or choice of TP on long walks home becomes an interesting intellectual exercise when you work in an old masonry building down on Western Avenue. Your neighborhood will resemble a war zone more than the peaceful waterfront place it is today. Again, if you survive intact the collapsing structures, liquefaction, fires, and a potential tsunami or seiche along the waterfront from the shaking, getting home to Lynnwood will be the least of your worries. If I were you, I would prepare more for personal injury and injuries of those working down the hallway from you, and the distinct possibility that you won't be moving more than a half mile from your work location until someone comes along to evacuate you. You may think and prepare as if you will walk away from your scenario unscratched, but what if you don't? Your architecture tends to dictate this more than your willing it to happen. Bandaids are cold comfort for broken bones and crush injuries. Think kerlix, and splinting material, and knowing how to use them.

Also one more thing on shelters - no one is going to 'send you to a shelter'. You will be fortunate if there is a shelter that you can enter Wolfepack. If its cold and rainy, as it often is in Seattle, you would be fortunate to get in the door, there will be so many who want in. And the folks who run it will treat you with the respect and dignity you offer and that you deserve, although those like adequate post-EQ supplies will be in short supply. I don't pretend to know what you imagine goes on inside a shelter, but its food, water and warmth, which can be in very short supply otherwise. If you choose your tarp and your ground insulation exposed outdoors thats fine, you'll have plenty of company, in those first 48-72 hours they'll be using cardboard and blankets and mattresses and whatever else they can pull from the rubble to make do. Stay safe. Be realistic.