TBT: The 1964 Alaska 'Quake - 9.2 Magnitude

54th anniversary was Tuesday. The only reason children didn't die in large numbers when the school building pancaked was that it was Good Friday, and schools were closed. A lot of older Alaskans still refer to it as "the Good Friday 'quake."

Side note: All the kids at home were watching Fireball XL5. The Fireball XL5 Club still gets together every year to watch that episode.

51 Years Ago

the Good Friday earthquake - a magnitude 9.2 - hit southcentral Alaska. People who were here then still turn pale when they remember it.

when the neighborhood called "Turnagain-by-the-Sea" became "Turnagain IN the sea"

Remembering the '64 'Quake

The 9.2-magnitude earthquake that reshaped parts of southcentral Alaska left scars on those who survived ... and on Alaska itself.

Anchorage, near downtown

The Seward highway, south of Anchorage on the Kenai Peninsula

The Four Seasons Apartments in Anchorage

Turnagain Heights, Anchorage

4th Avenue, downtown Anchorage

The waterfront on Kodiak Island

9.2 Magnitude: Alaska's 1964 'Quake Remembered

On March 27, 1964, California geologist George Plafker was attending a research conference in Seattle when news came of a big earthquake in Alaska.

“It was almost quitting time for the day at the meeting when some guys came back from the Space Needle and said they felt rocking,” Plafker said recently at his office in Menlo Park, Calif. “We said, ‘That’s a serious earthquake.’”

Iconic photograph of Anchorage's 4th Avenue - this is the block where I used to work,
and where the Iditarod is now run.

The area shown in the second picture was a neighborhood called "Turnagain-by-the-Sea", where the bluff collapsed into Cook Inlet, and 35 houses went with it. In a purely local joke, it's now referred to as "Turnagain-IN-the-Sea".


This is what the stretch of 4th Avenue looks like, today:

The long, gray-ish building on the right is located on top of where that hole appeared in '64. The crosswalk shown, in front of the yellow building (the "Sunshine Plaza") at the center is the starting line for the Iditarod, now.

The linked article at the top is that geologist's recollections; there are many more such stories about communities destroyed by the resulting tsunami, as well as those killed in Alaska and California.

It's the 49th Anniversary

... of the horrible earthquake in Alaska on Good Friday, 1964.

Quoting the article on www.adn.com, "The 9.2 magnitude quake and tsunami killed 128 people and caused millions of dollars of damage in Southcentral when it struck on March 27, 1964."

This stretch of 4th Avenue (downtown Anchorage) is where the Iditarod begins, now.

Go here to see video footage & pictures of the largest 'quake recorded in the northern hemisphere.

Wrapping Up an Eventful Day

The day started out a bit dicey, with the blizzard in our faces as we drove to work. Anchorage received 6" to 16", depending on location, but the wind was the big factor. It took what was otherwise an ordinary snowfall and caused two-foot drifts across freshly plowed roads, white-out conditions, and avalanches.

Isn't Spring fun?

On the bright side, Girdwood residents can now get out, if needed. The avalanches north & south of that community have been cleared, and the highway (the only highway) from Anchorage to the Kenai Peninsula is open again.

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Iditarod update: four top mushers busted out of Nikolai late Tuesday afternoon and headed for McGrath, one of the biggest towns along the Iditarod Trail.

Four-time champion Jeff King led a four-musher breakout at 3:08 p.m. Within a half-hour, last year's runner-up Sebastian Schnuelle of Whitehorse, Kuskokwim 300 winner John Baker of Kotzebue and 2004 champion Mitch Seavey of Sterling had given chase.

The article notes that "in recent years, the winner of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race has come from among the frontrunners into Nikolai, the village at the far end of the Farewell Burn. This year, the group was more a herd than a pack. By 3:06 p.m. Tuesday, 21 mushers were parked in Nikolai. Most had made the 80-mile run from Rohn in under 11 hours." (click on the link, above, for the whole article).

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One sad note: Talkeetna bush pilot Clifford Hudson has passed away, at 84. He was recognized by the Air Force for his part in a 1954 rescue of six airmen who parachuted out of a stricken plane. He also ran Hudson Air Service out of Talkeetna for years.

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In other news, [t]he Alaska Department of Fish and Game says it is looking into the death of a person possibly killed in a wolf attack Monday in Chignik Lake.

And finally, there's this: a lady has created a podcast regarding her parents' memories of the 1964 Alaska earthquake, which measured 9.2 on the Moment scale - the third most powerful 'quake ever recorded. You can find the 'cast here.