I used to ride my bike along this area in Anchorage. We call it Earthquake Park now. Peggy and I would take long walks along various paths of what was once a neighborhood. We’d make our way on down to the edge of the Cook Inlet.
Back on March 27, 1964, Alaskans saw TVs shake and turnover and then crawl across the living room, and houses and cars and towers tumble and crumble. I used to stand next to the inside wall of the house, as a quake would hit, and I could watch the wall twist and turn like a copperhead slithering away into the woods.
Alaska has 12,000 earthquakes a year, more than any other state in the Lower 48. “One of those struck Alaska in March 1964, a 9.2-magnitude disaster that killed 131 people, including 16 in Oregon and California. And it wasn't the quake itself that caused most of the fatalities. As in the Japan disaster [last] year, it was the tsunami. The earthquake and resulting tsunami were especially destructive to the town of Valdez, where 31 people died.”
From the Anchorage Daily News
Many stories, many shared experiences surround the ’64 quake.
G. Mark Sumpter
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