The one thing I forgot to mention about our two days in Anchorage is the one big item in the city’s history that gets mentioned everywhere you go. In fact, it would probably be annoying to hear so much about it if I didn’t find it so fascinating.
The 1964 Good Friday earthquake occurred at about 5:30 in the evening and was about 40 miles west of the town of Valdez, Alaska. It’s the largest earthquake ever recorded in North America at a staggering 9.2 on the Richter scale. It caused surprisingly few deaths, mainly because Alaska is (and was) so sparsely populated, though there were people in California and Oregon that died in the resulting tsunami waves. The stories we heard and the evidence we saw of the quake’s destruction are mind-blowing.
It was impossible for people to remain standing without holding onto something as the ground shook for almost 5 minutes. Streets cracked down the middle like in a movie. The control tower at the Anchorage airport collapsed. Entire towns were almost completely destroyed by the shaking and ground movement, and coastal towns like Seward, Valdez, and Whittier were severly damaged by the waves (Valdez, for example, now sits 4 miles away from where it used to be). Some areas of land rose by 30 feet, while others areas dropped by 10 feet. Landslides took out homes and businesses. For 18 months — a year and a half! — Alaska residents could still feel occasional aftershocks. And today, more than 40 years later, you can still see groves of dead trees as you drive down the Seward Highway along the Turnagain Arm. They were killed when the land dropped and the trees were flooded with salt water.
I’ve always been fascinated by earthquakes, so it was interesting to learn the history. I’ve only ever felt one — a very minor 3.5ish quake while I was in grad school in California — and that was weird enough. I can’t comprehend what it must have been like to experience such a huge quake. Today, Anchorage is of course aware that they’re always at risk of another huge quake. The tallest building in town is only about 10 stories.
I thought that was interesting too. Anchorage was the flattest city I’d ever seen – I dont’ remember seeing a single building above 2 stories. Random fact – Anchorage is the largest city in the US in terms of area.
There weren’t many above 2 stories. The Hilton downtown had a tower that was probably about 10 stories. That was the highest thing I think. Apparently that tower did survive the earthquake.
In my display of useless trivia… isn’t Juneau the largest city in terms of area?
Did you hear stories from the locals about the mudflats near Anchorage? I had an aunt and cousin that lived there for several years, they had several stories of tourists or dumb locals who would try to drive and take shortcuts across the mudflats to save an hour of driving time, and then get stuck, and then need rescue as the tide came in. Sometimes they didn’t have happy endings.
You could be right Gavin – I might be mixed up.