Large Valley retailers work through massive cleanup efforts to reopen following earthquake

MAT-SU — After a crew spent the days following the 7.0 earthquake that struck Southcentral Alaska Nov. 30 sifting through debris and sorting what could be salvaged, the Big Lake Three Bears store was open for business Monday morning.

As customers walked the aisles for the first time since the store closed after the earthquake, store manager Cheryl Kelly said there were dumpsters full of what was cleaned up waiting for pick up. It’s the result of a community effort, Kelly said, with employees of other Valley Three Bears stores stepping up to help out her Big Lake staff.

“Everybody came out. We just did one isle at a time. We all just worked together,” Kelly said.

Kelly said she was in her office when the earthquake struck, shaking the whole building. She said that there were no customers in the building at the time and all the staff escaped without any injuries.

“It was pretty scary,” Kelly said. “We got everybody out.”

She said the earthquake knocked out the power until 4:45 p.m. but the staff busily worked until the lights came back on.

“When the power came on, that’s when we really started assessing damage,” Kelly said.

The store suffered extensive damage, not limited to items strewed across the isles. Multiple steel shelving units fell apart and one main water line broke, flooding the place. She said that one company spent over two days welding the steel shelves back together.

“It was a pretty big chore,” Kelly said.

Kelly said there are still cracks throughout the building’s floors and the parking lot. She said there is still plenty of work to be done but they managed to get the store safely up and running for the public.

“We just wanted to help the community and get open as quick as we could,” Kelly said.

The Wasilla Carrs/Safeway store suffered more serious damage than its Palmer counterpart. According to store manager, Mark Kerr, the clean-up/repair process was quite extensive.

“Our number one was to get open as soon as possible for the community,” Kerr said.

The store was able to safely reopen the day after the earthquake, Saturday at 1 p.m. Kerr said that everything is fully operational but there is still plenty of repairs to undertake.

“It’s gonna take several weeks of paint, patch, repair work to get back to operations before the earthquake,” Kerr said.

Kerr said that he was not at the store during the earthquake but his assistant manager, Annette Wakaliuk was there when “it all broke loose.”

“All the shelves decided to go ahead and empty all the products,” Kerr said.

While the power was still out, Wakaliuk opened the doors to distribute free water to the community, according to Kerr.

“Her whole team went to town on it and did a great, great job,” Kerr said. “People were desperate for anything, especially water.”

Kerr said that they pulled in an emergency shipment of bottled water since so many people with wells would flock to the store once it was ready for entry. He said they brought in 11 boards of water bottles, which is about 2,200 cases, also utilizing their back up pallets from the back.

“I think it’s a healthy reminder of where we live… I tell people all the time Alaska is basically an island,” Kerr said.

Kerr recommended that everyone in the community prepare for the next disaster by stocking up on water, dry food and gasoline. He said it’s good to keep an extra five gallons or more of gasoline tucked away because, “gas lasts forever.”

“Stuff happens… We’re on our own up here,” Kerr said.

Kerr said that one of the most major damages was when the fire suppression unit in the ceiling broke, spilling water all over. He said that made their clean-up and repair efforts take even longer.

“It didn’t take long to flood the store,” Kerr said.

Kerr marveled at his crew that helped get the store safely operational despite having their own issues caused by the earthquake.

“The whole team is phenomenal,” Kerr said. “People in Alaska, they come together… That’s what so unique about Alaska. You don’t find that in a lot of places.”

Kali Dingman, Senior Communications Associate at Target wrote about the condition of the company’s Wasilla store in an official statement via email.

“At Target, the safety and well-being of our team members and guests is critically important to us. Following the earthquake last Friday, we reached out to all of our team members in the area to make sure they were safe. Additionally, three of our stores in Anchorage and Wasilla closed briefly to repair broken light fixtures and ceiling tiles and to restock damaged products. Thanks to the incredible efforts of our team, all three stores have reopened and we’re working quickly to restock needed items for our guests,” Dingman said.

Contact Frontiersman reporter Jacob Mann at Jacob.mann@frontiersman.com.