The day the earth shook

The March 27, 1964 earthquake that devastated several Southcentral Alaska communities struck with a magnitude of 9.2. Lots of people know that.

The epicenter pinpointed at 61.02 north longitude and 147.65 west latitude means that the quake’s origin was slightly closer to Palmer than Anchorage. Most people don’t know that.

Yet, comparatively Palmer, along with the rest of the Valley, incurred very little serious damage. The Valley’s gravel underpinnings, lack of tall buildings, solid do-it-yourself construction and a small and spread-out population contributed to that difference.

Scientifically reported in a series of U.S. Geological Survey reports, the Valley survived nearly intact due to the “coarse gravelly sediment and bedrock,” the former mostly courtesy of the Matanuska River, which provides our foundation, combined with a water table 10 feet or more below the surface.

The distance from coastal waters also contributed to the Valley’s safety. Despite the lack of intense devastation, the Valley still experienced the quake in all its fury. We were spared the resulting damage and massive destruction that came with toppled buildings, massive mudslides (except the Old Glenn Highway beneath Pioneer Peak) and the threatening tsunami. Placement of the local National Tsunami Warning Center serves as testament to the 1964 quake experience and government’s faith in our safety.

Many Valley residents lived in or were visiting Anchorage on that fateful Good Friday. Other borough folks simply went about their business on Friday evening, happy to have survived another school or work week. They looked forward to the weekend and the special Sunday ahead. It was Friday night after a gloriously sunny day. Moms cooked in the kitchen and families prepared for the evening meal. It was just about time to relax, kick your shoes off, and then, well, all hell broke loose.

In interviews with Valley residents who lived through that day, people report similar descriptions, common thoughts and almost scripted actions. Many said that fields, wooden floors and roads moved like water.

Evelyn Mielke said she was attending a girls’ intra-mural basketball game at what is now the Mat-Su Borough Gym during the quake. She said that “the gym’s wooden floor looked like water flowing in waves.”

Ben Moffitt said he watched in awe from his home near the Musk Ox Farm as the fields undulated in “four-foot swells like ocean waves.”

Then 10-year-old Brad Lewis said he was visiting his grandparents, Max and Dorothy Sherrod, when he watched from their farmhouse as the ground came toward him “like waves in water. I made quite a game of it and jumped up each time” a crest rolled by.

Trees and power poles reportedly swayed back and forth like blades of grass in the wind.

“The trees that bordered the field were flapping sideways,” writes Harry Buzby, “and I would almost bet that I recall some of them hitting the ground and going straight up again.”

Jonathon Norbo, driving home from work at the Evan Jones Coal Co. in Sutton, reported, “Telephone poles swayed from side to side; the lines grew taut, then slack.”

Lewis also described how “the trees whipped back and forth.”

People repeatedly spoke of an all-encompassing noise; overwhelming and frightening.

“It was deafening,” said Chris Woods, former owner of Woods Air Service at the Palmer Airport. She said she could not hear and in order to speak with a friend who was within arm’s length, she needed to scream.

Lewis described the sound as unbearable.

“There was a tremendous noise, so loud, we couldn’t talk,” he said. “There was a roar coming from everywhere.”

Moffit said it was “unbelievable; a thunderstorm rumbling in the ground.”

Most people admitted to being dumbstruck, unable to move and unable to comprehend the full magnitude of what was happening. “I was frozen. I just couldn’t move,” Woods said.

Mielke said action stopped in the gym that day and they all looked at one another in shock.

Michael Janecek said that although he knew he was in danger, he just couldn’t take his eyes off what he was seeing.

Nearly every person reported that they kept waiting for the shaking and rolling to stop, but instead it continued on and on. In fact, it lasted about 4.5 minutes.

“It was long!” said Leif Kopperud.

Vi Norbo told herself, “It’s gonna stop. It’s gonna stop.”

“The shaking went on forever!” Woods said.

Bill Estelle was 10 years old at the time and was at his home above Bailey Hill. “It would just shake and shake and shake some more,” he said.

Other similar reports include cars jumping and rolling. Woods said she watched her 1959 Ford slam into the hangar, back and forth, over and over. Lewis said their cars bounced on the ground like basketballs.

Moffitt said he was working on his car in their carport when both the vehicle and the building began to move. He said he had to wiggle out from between them avoid getting squished.

Janacek was in Anchorage during the event, and that there, “Trucks and cars (were) tossed about like Tonka toys.”

Through it all, people expressed humor. Kopperud joked about how the town drunk drove straight for the first time ever. Estelle described vividly how cows in a nearby pasture “ran headlong as fast as they could, until a wave came along and tipped them over. Then they would spring up and run like mad in the other direction until they fell again. It was kind of a hoot.”

Buzby said at his house, that was the night his mom decided to fix a tuna casserole for dinner: “It was the first and last time my mother made that particular dish.”

As the minutes passed, people stopped watching and began moving. Many went outside, some stayed within doorways, but most all sought out family members and stayed together.

Sally Greek Hitchcock wrote, “I grabbed a 2- and 5-year-old girl under each arm and waded through the groceries to the back door.”

Janie Evanson Henderson recalls her dad proclaiming, “This isn’t safe!” Then he herded the family into the kitchen.

Rose Henderson wrote that her babysitter “got us out of the house and led us barefoot through the snow to her parents’ house.”

Mostly folks reported broken dishes, emptied cupboards and jostled furniture. Kopperud and others saw water slopping out of the Palmer water tower as it swayed from side to side. Many witnessed the slide on Pioneer Peak.

And when the shaking stopped and people realized their homes were intact and their families safe, they sought out neighbors and friends to help them however they could. Jim Moffitt, in high school at the time, went to a neighboring farm to help milk cows.

Kopperud took equipment to city hall to see what he could do and eventually joined the Civil Defense Team in Anchorage. Woods housed people stranded by the mudslide on the Glenn Highway.

Several folks said that Palmer was a good place to be during the ’64 quake, but Kopperud was perhaps most eloquent.

“(Alaska) was a different place and time then,” he said. “We were barely a state, still a territory really. We were cut off. No one came to our rescue. We needed to deal with this on our own.” After a pause, he added, “The people were amazing.”

Kopperud ended his interview on a cautionary note.

“But this was a wakeup call,” he said. “I am 71. A lifetime has gone by since then. It’s going to happen again — not if, when. We should fight complacency.”

•••••

This marks my first official assignment as a contract writer for the Frontiersman. I would like to thank the many kind people who shared their experience or offered references for me. I so hope that my writing does their stories justice. My apologies if I fell short. Every person I spoke with was candid and articulate; her/his details precise, their use of adjectives so very expressive. After a short introduction and explanation of my task, it seemed like I had turned on a faucet and the flow of thoughts and memories just came pouring out. I never needed to prompt or encourage.

These individual interviews and other writings from folks who answered the Frontiersman request for 1964 quake stories are posted online at frontiersman.com. I hope you take the time and have the means to access them. Special thanks to Kara Gately, Senior Watchstander at the National Tsunami Warning Center for assisting me with factual information.