60 Years Ago Today - The Great Alaska Earthquake

[Steve Herschbach]

Well sort of. Good Friday was on Friday March 27 in 1964. I was 6 years old at the time, living at 4149 Hood Court in the Turnagain neighborhood of Anchorage, Alaska with my parents, a brother, and a sister. I was the oldest and was getting my first dose of science fiction by watching Fireball XL-5 on the TV set. We only had two channels to choose from back then in Anchorage, no live television except locally. Anything in the Lower 48 like football games was taped and played later in Alaska. My only other option as a 6 year old was Davey and Goliath on the other channel, and I was definitely more a Fireball XL-5 type. Still am. 

I'm laying on the couch when the TV goes out. The old tube sets would sort of flash, then the picture would slowly shrink to a small white dot, then pop, it's gone. The power had just gone out. I remember being puzzled and then hearing a roar in the distance. And then the house started going way up in the air!

Everyone was home and my parents gathered my youngest siblings immediately into the living room, where I joined them huddled in the middle of the room. Our dog was going crazy running around barking. It was impossible now to do anything but huddle on the floor. The house rose up high then dropped fast, literally falling out below us. It was exactly like being on a large cruise ship in heavy seas. It was not shaking, it was a slowish go way up and then way down as the house rode giant waves. It was waves in the ground.

Everything fell off every wall and shelf. Every cabinet door in the kitchen opened and the refrigerator door also, and everything ended up in a pile on the kitchen floor. Everything in the house that could fall over did. It was the end of the world in progress.

It took long minutes to subside and somehow when it was over we all were fine. I don't have the greatest memory of the past but some things are etched in memory forever, and those few minutes I will never forget. The aftermath is fuzzier. We were two houses from the edge of what is now called Earthquake Park, a huge chunk of northern Anchorage that subsided and half slid into Cook Inlet. From our backyard there used to be some houses and a forest.... now it was gone from view. Two houses went over the edge, one flattened completely, but luckily nobody was home. Giant cracks and fissures were in the ground everywhere. It is a testament to stick built wood construction that most houses were intact unless they fell into a hole, though cement pad and basement damage was common. Alaska was very lucky that day. When you look at the photos at the attached links and the magnitude of the damage, the 115 deaths statewide seems a miracle. Less than twenty died in the earthquake itself, crushed by falling objects, etc. The rest died in the subsequent tsunamis, mostly in Seward and Valdez.

My father was in the National Guard and was called out immediately for rescue operations. Everyone else evacuated to high ground and we stayed with friends on the hillside, as it was feared that Cook Inlet would funnel tidal waves into the city. The quake however was in Prince William Sound due south and so Anchorage was spared the tsunamis that devasted the smaller coastal towns.

Anchorage and the state slowly recovered. As a 6 year old most of that went over my head and it was soon life as normal - back to school. Yet my friends and I also had an amazing new playground in the form of what became Earthquake Park. It has eroded away to forested low rolling hills now, but back then it was an amazing topsy-turvy wasteland/wonderland of broken jumbled landforms. We were strictly forbidden from going there due to on going aftershocks and fears of more quakes. It was however an irresistible pull for me and my friends who explored this strange alien landscape. Truly an amazing place, now lost to time and erosion.

I know this is off topic but I'll justify it by calling it one of the most direct and personal lessons in geology a person can get at an early age. It no doubt helped guide me to my interest in the earth sciences in general, learning all about plate tectonics and the real life effects of geology gone wild. From the Wikipedia link below:

"Lasting four minutes and thirty-eight seconds, the magnitude 9.2 megathrust earthquake remains the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in North America, and the second most powerful earthquake ever recorded in the world since modern seismography began in 1900"

https://www.life.com/history/the-great-alaska-earthquake-of-1964-rare-photos-from-an-epic-disaster/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake

Location of our house above, and photo below of what Earthquake Park looked like back then. Our house would be off the right hand edge of the photo; the area in photo is off end of Clay Products Drive. Obviously there were more houses lost there…. four people died in the general Turnagain area.

Photo from article linked above

[dig4gold]

Only yesterday I came across some you tube footage of the Christchuch Earthquake of 14 years ago here in New Zealand.

While I was living at the time no where near I had friends who were among it while ruble was falling. Crazy insane time as there were many many after shocks with one a few months later, while not the strongest on the Richter scale was the most devastating & greater loss of life.

What people went through destroyed many emotionally & financially. The lived on the edge of fear every day with the relentless after shocks not knowing when one would be the killer blow. That came but who knew?. No power, water, sewerage etc. Liquid faction bubbling up from the water table flooding many areas. Many people left the district & understandably so. Of course insurance companies screwed over many destroyed & desperate people just to add more woes to their shattered lives. It was disgraceful.

To see you post this, again took me back to Chch but then to see snow in your post that was one thing Chch didnt have. Thank goodness.

D4G 

[Steve Herschbach]

New Zealand and Alaska share a lot in common when it comes to geology and unfortunately that is true when it comes to earthquakes also.

How Earthquakes Help Deposit Gold

Gold Tectonics

[Jim in Idaho]

I was in the Air Force  4 years after the quake. I remember a buddy from Anchorage that had an album full of pics of the quake damage. Can't even remember his name now. I remember being astounded at the damage.

Jim

[rexhavoc]

I shall hither forth and forevermore refer to you as Steve Zodiac. 

About the same age as you Steve Z; remember hearing about the event in awe. Can't imaging being there at ground zero.

"Ok, Venus? Ok Steve. Right! Let's go!"

 

 

[Valens Legacy]

Thank you Steve for the experience you shared and I remember from school stories about what you went through.

Very devastated the area was and took a long time to recover. I sort of remember that there are still areas that show signs of damage from that quake if I remember correctly.

 

[Gold Seeker]

I remember when that happened, I also remember seeing all of those photos in Life magazine back then too. 

[Doc Bach]

I will never forget that day I was twelve and was at my Grandparrents home with my family.We were all watching the Ed Sullivan show when the phone rang.Turns out that it was my older brother calling from Crescent City California.He was a patrolman for the local police department and called to let us know about the imminent tidal wave.The following weekend we all drove up there from Ukiah to see the massive destruction first hand.

[strick]

It's hard to imagine an earth quake of that magnitude lasting 4 minutes and 30 seconds..what a ride that must have been. In 1989 was an undergrad studying in a library (the quietest of all places) when the Loma Prieta earth quake occurred...and like you mentioned you could hear the rumbling coming before you could actually feel the quake..that one was only 6.9  and it only lasted less then 30 seconds so a 9.2 of over 4 minutes...crazy stuff...

strick