Louise Bidondo's story

We were living in a trailer park in Anchorage at the time the earthquake hit. My husband was getting ready to go to work and my older son was taking his nap still. When our trailer started rocking my husband made me sit down because I was 9 months pregnant with our second son, while he went and checked on Pierre. Pierre was sitting up in his bed and said, “What’s going on here, Daddy?” So he was fine. Water splashed out of the toilet bowl, things fell from the cupboards and the TV, which was on a stand bounced across the living room floor. The power went out and was out for 3 days where we lived. First reports on the radio were really bad, but I made up my mind if the baby decided to come, I was staying right where I was. We had a nurse down the street and I figured she would know what to do. My cousin and her husband and baby came over for a while and another friend came by, so my husband offered him a piece of cake. When he went to get it out of the refrigerator it had noodle soup on the top of it; but Clarence didn’t seem to mind. After they left, my husband decided he needed to go check and see how things were at Gilman’s Bakery where he worked. When he got home he said there wouldn’t be any work that night, so we nestled in for a long night, interrupted with many aftershocks. We never knew if it would be another big one or not, so that was kind of hard on the nerves. Craig was due on the 27th, but decided to wait until April 4th to make his entry into this world. I tried to call my doctor, but couldn’t get him. Then I tried to call the hospital where I was supposed to go and I couldn’t get it. An aunt staying with me told me to call Providence Hospital. The nurse there told me I needed to get there right away. I called my husband and he came home on his break and drove me to the hospital and then went back to work. A couple of hours later Craig was born and we stayed at the hospital for 2 days. I was in a ward with three other ladies and we became friends. One of the ladies and I have been friends now for almost 50 years! One of the worst things I remember about the earthquake were the aftershocks. We had plenty of canned goods and were always prepared for an emergency, and had no damage to speak of in our home. I am thankful that we were prepared and had everything we needed and everyone in my family was safe. The weather wasn’t too cold but we had no heat, so we just moved into the front area of our home and kept warm enough.

Reprinted from the March 2014 issue of the Palmer Historical Society Newsletter.