Nancy Platt Bidwell's story

The 1964 Earthquake had a huge impact on my life. It was kinda a triple whammy for me since I was a Senior at West High School when the Big Earthquake did the ‘All Shook Up’ number on Alaskans and I lived at 2314 Turnagain Parkway in Turnagain By the Sea. My house was sixth from the end of the street where all our friends and neighbors homes went over the bluff and into the ocean. Then 3rd I was on 4th Avenue at the time the quake hit. I had just left Penney’s and headed over to my boyfriends work. We hung onto the parking meters until the bricks started falling off the building.

I was a Student Life Editor of the Anchor, our yearbook. Journalism and Photography were my favorite classes. I lost my new Kodiak 35 mm camera that was a Christmas present from my parents, when the second floor of West collapsed and took my locker down with it.

On that Good Friday afternoon, I had been shopping and had just left Penney’s, and walked over to Alaska Cleaners at 201 E. 4th Avenue. I was meeting my boyfriend who worked at the cleaners. He usually got off work at 5:30, but was still unloading his truck when I arrived. I hopped in the back of his truck as I heard a very loud roar and the truck started shaking! I thought my boyfriend was shaking the truck to scare me! I yelled at him to stop and then he appeared at the back of the truck, eyes as big as saucers and yelled for me to get out of the truck! We ran to the side of the building and hung onto the parking meters, until the bricks started to crash down around us! One brick scraped my leg and it started to bleed. Not real gushing blood but still it was running down my leg and I’m screaming, get knocked to the ground and crawl out in the middle of the intersection facing West on 4th Avenue. We pulled ourselves up and hung onto the fins of a 1959 Cadillac and rode out the waves and jolts of that mighty quake, all the time with the loudest roar blaring in our ears! We could see the road and buildings collapsing down a few blocks by the Denali Theater. We just knew that the road under our feet would be sinking at any minute. But then after three to four minutes the shaking stopped. People were screaming and you could still hear buildings crashing to the ground. Some one ran by saying that Penney’s had collapsed and that there were people crushed in their cars, so we ran over to the next block to see what happened. I will never forget what I saw. Mostly dust at first as hundreds of people were running around or some just standing in shock. A lot of people were crying, screaming and sobbing. I did see several crushed cars and a little boy about 4 years old standing by one car crying out for mommy. A policeman came by and scooped him up.

My boyfriend and I went back to Alaska Cleaners and jumped in his truck and headed out to Elmendorf Air Force Base where his parents lived. It took us over 4 hours to get from 4th Ave to Post Road to the Base. His parents were so happy to see us! I was frantic to find out if my parents were ok, and my boyfriend’s dad was a Ham Operator so he was on the radio trying to find out anything he could. All roads to Turnagain By the Sea were blocked so there was no point in trying to go home. I stayed there for 2 days and spent a lot of time listening to the Ham Radio and calling the Red Cross about my parents and my 7 year old sister. Finally I got word that they were ok! I went home on the morning of the third day but was stopped at the end of my street by the National Guard. All of Turnagain was blocked off and secured from looting by the National Guard. I had no ID, as my purse was lost somewhere in all the confusion of the earthquake. I asked the guardsman to call my parents and he did. My dad came down to get me. My dad was crying because he was so happy to see me! I will never forget that big hug from him.

Boy was I in for a shock when I saw our house. It was off its foundation with large cracks in the yard. All the windows were boarded up as they had all broken. The 50 gallon aquarium had fallen over and crashed through the basement door and I could still smell the dead fish and salamanders in the basement. The basement is where my bedroom was, so I didn’t stay down there long. I grabbed as much as I could and camped out in the living room. Oh, my mom had been preparing Sauerkraut for dinner the night of the quake and that smell stayed in the house for months! We couldn’t get rid of it until we painted. I will never forget finding sauerkraut plastered on the walls and ceiling for weeks and scrubbing it off.

Our little dachshund dog named Ilsa had run out the door and disappeared down the street when my mom had opened the door after the shaking stopped. We searched and searched and finally on day five a guy from several streets over brought her home. Thank goodness she had her dog tags on!

My mom told me about how her little statue of Jesus Blessing the Children, with outstretched arms, was the only thing left standing on her dresser! Everything including her perfume bottles, figurines and photos were smashed on the floor, but not the Jesus statue!

We received several telegrams and a lot of letters from worried relatives and friends. We couldn’t get the word out that we were ok and they were frantic.

We had no heat, electricity or water. We camped out by the fireplace, melted snow (and mom would remind me to avoid the yellow snow) and ate C-Rations. My dad had just retired from the Air Force the year before and we had a lot of C-Rations, batteries, Jerry cans of water and sleeping bags. We had a camp stove too. My dad believed in being prepared. But he was prepared for a bombing from Russia, not an earthquake.

People kept their sense of humor through it all. Turnagain By the Sea became ‘Turnagain In the Sea’, and signs like ‘Early Break‐up Sale’, and All Shook Up signs and “A Whole Lot of Shaking Going On” were spotted everywhere.

We spent our days cleaning up and helping neighbors recover their belongings. We quickly realized how lucky we were. Many of our friends at the end of our street lost their homes, down over the bluff. My dad, mom and I spent many days helping them find their clothes, photo albums, pets and anything that could be salvaged.

I helped Mrs. Green, my journalism teacher, clean up and sort through hundreds and hundreds of books that were all over the floor in the Library at West High School.

The thing I hated the most was having to use a Honey Bucket. We would set the bucket out by the curb and the National Guard would come by and pick it up. We had two buckets so when one was being dumped (that took several hours sometimes) we had a spare.

Within a few weeks the water company laid 4” irrigation pipes on the ground, up and down the street. They gave each house a hose to hook up to the pipe. Yay! We now had water! The National Guard had a warming barrel, hot coffee and soup at their station down the street at the entrance to Turnagain Parkway. My mom would make the guys cookies every few days and I would take a plate down to the guys. A lot of the neighbors did the same thing.

After about two weeks I found out that the West High students would be double shifting at East High since our school was so badly damaged. What a blow that was to have to go to East! We at West had a saying, “West is Best and East is Least.” Some of the kids didn’t mind since they had friends there, but I didn’t like it too much. We got the afternoon shift right after lunch and the bus would take us around back of the school and drop us off, then go around front to pick up the Eastsiders and take them home. So we didn’t see much of them.

West High School had their Sayonara theme Senior Ball at the Officers club on Elmendorf. My mom found the time to sew me a dark navy dress. That was all the material she had. I remember her saying, “I wish I had a real bright cheerful color for you dress.” I told her I loved the dress and felt like a princess wearing it. She loaned me her long black gloves to complete the outfit.

When graduation came, we all (about 880 students from both West and East) graduated from a hangar out on Elmendorf Air Force Base. I think we were all so glad to not have to go back to school.

After many worried hours wondering if we would get some kind of relief aid to rebuild our home, my dad got a 3 percent Small Business Administration loan. Nobody had Earthquake insurance back then.

Over the summer we got our house raised and some new foundation walls put in. We finally got all the comforts of home restored and started moving on with our lives.

We had many, many aftershocks, for months after that big earthquake. Everyone was so nervous when that happened. I still to this day, freak out when we have a small earthquake. I can still hear that mighty roar, too.