"Life is lived forward, but understood backward. It is not until we are down the road and we stand on the mountain looking back through the valley that we can appreciate the terrain God has allowed us to scale.” Jill Savage

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Earthquake of 1964

The Earthquake of 1964

The picture below shoes the Hilton Hotel. In 1964 the land that slopes down from the Hilton was level to the Hilton.

The Earthquake Museum writes this about the earthquake:

"1964 Alaska Earthquake The Great Alaska Earthquake that struck the Anchorage area on Good Friday, March 27, 1964 at 5:36 PM registered 8.6 on the Richter Scale, although scientists now favor a different magnitude scale for very large quakes that shows this quake as 9.2. This made it the largest quake that has hit the United States in recorded history and one of the largest known worldwide.
Geologically, the effects were widespread and dramatic. Large areas were lifted up or dropped by several feet, landslides were extensive, ground failure led to large fissures in the ground, landslides into bays caused huge seiche waves locally and a tsunami caused damage thousands of miles away. Luckily, the casualties were considerably lighter than might be expected for a disaster of this magnitude. 115 deaths are attributed to the quake. This relatively low number can be attributed to the sparse population of the area and the fact that the quake occurred when most people were at home.
Description: The earthquake started with a few seconds of small tremors. These quickly built into intense shaking that knocked people down, threw objects from shelves and caused buildings to collapse. Amazingly this shaking lasted for a full 5 minutes. People reported that it seemed like an eternity. For comparison, the Northridge and Loma Prieta quakes in California each lasted less than 30 seconds. The time of shaking generally increases with increased magnitude. The longer the ground shakes, the more damage will occur as structures first weaken and then collapse under the strain. The long period of shaking in this quake doubtless caused much of the ground failure that was observed.
Downtown Anchorage was especially hard hit. Building facades crashed into the street. In some places one side of the street dropped down over 10 feet, leaving the facing buildings towering above. In places ground waves of over 3 feet high were observed. People reported feeling as if they were in ships at sea as the waves passed through. Fissures opened up as blocks of earth dropped and tilted. Underground layers of soil liquified, allowing the solider ground above to slide many feet, sometimes in solid blocks. Cliffs collapsed in huge landslides. One landslide occurred under an expensive housing development overlooking Cook Inlet."

More Information I heard on the trip -
The tsunami wave that hit right afterwards was a big one. To this day they still have 'dead forests' around because the salt from the ocean killed the soils ability to grow vegetation.



Okay, today Chatty has her 'groove' back or at least she is getting there. Thank goodness for you and me both!

I tell you - Alaska threw me for a loop. Felt like an earthquake happened in my own life and shook it up - I'm just now recovering and starting to rebuild.

So many people there left their 'home' and went on their own for awhile. I mean even woman and men my age were doing their own thing - it totally amazed me! I felt knocked over the head -like a huge boulder hit me over the head. I never even dreamed of doing anything like that. Well, I just said I never even dreamed of doing anything like that - right - but I did start dreaming of doing something like that - and then I did it!!!!!!!! I'm just a little bit older than I wanted to be before I started this journey. Well you can't have everything.

So Chatty's been thinkin' (as dangerous as that is) it really doesn't have to be Alaska per say - it was just Alaska for me - that opened my eyes - saw what I could have had - but didn't. It made me mad at myself and even sad. I decided to feel my feelings whatever they were so I've had to kind of cope with that the first couple of weeks I got back. Regrets you know - feeling sorry for myself and all that I missed out on in life. There is a whole big world out there folks.

That's one reason I went to Alaska now. I was ready. I needed Alaska. Alaska woke me up. It has my head and heart spinning in every direction. So while at first I was sad thinking about all the things I had missed in life - I've decided (yes it is a choice on my part right now) to move forward trying to think about all the choices and life I have ahead of me. It's a great feeling to be alive again. There are so many things to see and do out there - yikes.

So lets move on to Alaska and the joys (?) of midlife . . . another name for this is . . . living.

Love, Chatty

2 comments:

ClassyChassy said...

Key word: CHOICES! We all have them, and when you DON'T choose one, that is a choice TOO!

^..^Corgidogmama said...

Choices whether we regret them later or not, give us a lesson to be learned. No matter where we are in life, the learning and the choices don't stop until we're dead. You're describing your feelings so well. It's a joy to read about this trip and what it's done for you, and to you.