Good Friday Earthquake, Part 3

Random Tales from the Earthquake

The woman who led our volunteer organization for servicemen was driving in downtown Anchorage. When the shaking started she pulled to the curb and stayed in the car. There was a man on the sidewalk next to her holding on to a pole with a sign stating “No Stopping or Standing”. After it was over they all just stared in shock, looking at each other. Then he looked up at the sign and said, “Well, I wasn’t really standing, you know.”

A local Anchorage store put a sign on their door that said, “Closed due to a shakeup in management.”

My mother had a friend who was a bartender in one of the bars that was part of the area downtown that sank 20 feet or so. He said there was a patron sitting at the bar who never moved from his barstool through the whole quake. After it was over, he proudly held up his glass and said, “I didn’t spill a drop!”

I was senior at West Anchorage High School, and the second floor of the school collapsed during the quake. We finished the year doing split shifts at East High. However, our graduation announcements, ordered months before, still held a drawing of the school. I sent them out to family and friends with a note telling everyone it was just the latest “Earthquake Joke.” West High is still there, but it’s only one story now. Although the main stairway still exists; it just doesn’t go anywhere.

Our senior prom was delayed, and we ended up having it at Ft. Richardson a week or two later than planned. And graduation, instead of taking place in the West High auditorium, was held in an airplane hanger on Elmendorf Air Force Base. It was an experience to remember!

While greatly damaged, Anchorage was by no means the hardest hit. Valdez was completely destroyed, with a large part of the town sinking into the sea. The town was relocated four miles away, where today it is the terminus of the Alaska Pipeline. Seward was also hard hit, first by a tsunami, and then fires from damaged fuel storage tanks near the docks. It was cut off for several days, since the Seward Highway and the railroad were impassible. Seward is situated on Resurrection Bay, wedged between the sea and the mountains, with only the one way in and out.

I got a first-hand report from a schoolmate, who had gone to Seward for the Easter break to stay with her mother, who worked there. She told me that after the shaking stopped she started to run to where her mother worked, but she was stopped by a man who told her they needed to go up the mountain. He pointed to the sea, which had emptied out a good portion of the bay. He knew what she didn’t: that a tidal wave was coming. Seward got not just one wave, but several. They ended up spending the night on the side of the mountain, along with many others. It was cold, so he gave her his jacket. When she told me her story, she said she never found out who the man was, but she still had his jacket. Oh, and her Mom was OK. She was also on the mountain, but in a different area.