PORTLAND -- As it stands, no school in any major district would be usable again after a major earthquake. Meaning every district in our state would have to rebuild from the ground up.

"It was like a giant had come to our home and picked it up and shook it around, and then slammed it down," Chris Cookie said as she remembers the 1993 Mollala quake.

The magnitude 5.3 shaker hit during spring break. It destroyed a large portion of Mollala High School. A school she's worked at for more than 20 years. A school of unreinforced brick built in the 1920's.

"It actually tumbled," Cookie said. "The front of it came tumbling forward." Since then, the Molalla district --and all other major districts including Portland--have retrofitted their buildings to a point. "I don't know if I could tell you whether our buildings would be safe after an earthquake,"

Molalla River Superintendent, Wayne Kostur said. Portland Public Schools can.

And the answer is no. "Our idea has always been to retrofit these buildings to stand long enough to get the students out," said Matt Shelby with Portland Public Schools.

"That doesn't mean they're going to be usable buildings when its all said and done." The Beaverton School District is the same way, meaning if we see a quake even close to the size of Japan's, the buildings would be a total loss.

But at least they wouldn't crumble like Mollala High. But not every school in the district is as sound.

Portland's Beverly Clearly K-8 is built in the same way as the old Mollala High School and has yet to be retrofitted.

And in the Beaverton School District., out of 53 buildings, 17 have yet to be touched.

PPS is going up for a bond measure this year to fully retrofit nine of their schools to outlast a major earthquake. Meanwhile, the Beaverton School District is hoping for more state funding to finish their projects.

In this day and age an unreinforced brick school in a significant seismic zone is insane. This problem is what caused many deaths in the Great San Francisco Earthquake.