Alaskan 9.2 Earthquake... March 27, 1964 (Anchorage, Valdez, Seward: house, subdivision, living in)

[starlite9]

Took this video of Portage a week ago when I was passing though it. I was nine years old when the Earthquake hit and living in Anchorage. But was always a point of fascination when I go through the old town-site.

A week before the Earthquake, we stopped here to have breakfast at the restaurant that use to be on the other side of the highway. After the Earthquake, this entire West side of the Prince William Sound (EXXON Valdez oil spill fame) about the size of Ohio, sank almost 20+- feet, the East side of the fault the same size raised up about the same amount. Well this area that sank, the tide came up to almost the top of the roofs of all these buildings that are left. The Restaurant where we had breakfast the Sunday morning before, was almost submerged and the people had to be rescued off the roof by a helicopter the following day.

The Seward Highway was opened a week or so later, but the tide would cover the road by some ten to fifteen feet twice daily and the new road is some thirty feet higher now days from where is was then for you new guys that drive it.

In Portage, that entire area has been pushed up by the Tectonic Plate movement and the tide no longer comes into the town site. So the pressure it building for another quake someday.

Anyway, bit of boring Alaska History! If you got photos, feel free to add them!



1964 Alaskan 9.2 Earthquake - YouTube

[Moose Whisperer]

Excellent!

You're a braver man than I - standing on the shoulder of the deadly Seward Hwy filming that - but great stuff none the less!

[RedJacket]

Like others, I've seen many pictures, and some film of that quake, and it's amazing the amount of damage that was done, along with the rearranging of so much land.

With the amount of daily seismic activity in Alaska, you just know something big is going to happen again. I guess its a good thing that the population is as sparse as it is.

[tigre79]

I went to the Remembering Old Town exhibit earlier this week, and they show quite a touching video that includes a lot of survivors of the quake in Valdez. What I hadn't realized was that they'd had a lot of problems with the river before the quake and had to rebuild dikes and part of the harbor previously. And after the quake they tried to stay but the town had subsided 9 feet and high tides were coming into town and flooding buildings.

I also didn't realize that in 1907 or so one of the railroad companies had attempted to develop the current townsite, but it was abandoned and commonly referred to (until 1964) as "Old Town." They have an aerial photo from some time in the 50s or 60s and you can see an overgrown street grid where town is now, and it looks just like the overgrown street grid of Old Town that you see in the current satellite photos.

[nwcountrygal]

One of the guys in town here in Seward tells story of that day. Short of it his dad put mom and kids on roof of house once they realized what was going on lived in subdivision gone now by airport. They rode wave a couple miles inland on roof. Took a week before they got to town. Amazing..

[starlite9]

Originally Posted by RedJacket

Like others, I've seen many pictures, and some film of that quake, and it's amazing the amount of damage that was done, along with the rearranging of so much land.

With the amount of daily seismic activity in Alaska, you just know something big is going to happen again. I guess its a good thing that the population is as sparse as it is.

If the quake of that 9.2 hit someplace like the West Coast, the death toll would be very high. I think the Alaskan population for the whole state back then was a bit over 250,000 people. That is less than most mid sized towns in the lower 48.

Wouldn't be pretty anyplace a quake like that hit.

What is funny though, is the East Coast Quake amfew months ago is just a tremor here!