Alaska earthquake

DanHolohan

I hope our friends in Alaska are okay.

Fred

@rick in Alaska , are you guys alright?

Larry Weingarten

Hello, I had a look and Homer (where Rick is) is 579 miles from Fairbanks. (Mmmm, must have coffee before typing ) Still, 7 is a BIG quake! Wonder if Rock felt it? Alaska does scary quakes
Yours, Larry

rick in Alaska

I am actually about 240 miles from Anchorage, which is where it hit at. I was home doing a little paperwork before going to work when it hit. I had the couch rocking and anything hanging, swinging. It was starting to make me nervous as it was rocking pretty hard, and going on for about 15 seconds. But, then it stopped, and I did damage assessment. My wife does fused glass work in her studio, so I checked it out and found everything to be ok. So, I decided to just go to work. At about that time however, the phone and the radio started going off with tsunami alerts. I am at about 750 feet elevation, so wasn't concerned for me, but my mother in law is only about 150 feet, and they were talking a possible 90 foot wave, so i figured it would be in my best interest to get her to safety. Good idea, Huh!?
Anyway, the phones were jammed so I couldn't get through, so I went over to her place and made sure she was ok. When I got there, I checked her house elevation and determined it was about 200 feet, so I told her to just stay put. The tsunami alerts were still going off all through town, so there were people heading to high ground in a hurry. Since my mother in law was ok, and it looked like the people in town seemed to be doing ok, I just continued on my way to work, which was in Anchor Point, about 15 miles away. Gotta keep working, right?
I had my portable ham radio with me so was able to keep up on what was happening in town. Ham radio is great when the cell phones are locked up.
Anyway, I built my house myself and it did well, but sounds like there was quite a bit of damage in Anchorage, including an off ramp to the airport that sunk down and damaged it beyond any quick repair. I have a friend who works at one of the hospitals there who said things were flying all over the place, so they got out as quick as they could.
Looks like there will be quite a bit of cleanup and rebuilding in the future for a lot of places.
Thanks for checking in on me though. And, I would still rather be here for the occasional quake, than be down south for constant hurricanes and such. At least we don't have a "hurricane season".
Rick

DanHolohan

@rick in Alaska you always find a bright side. Love that about you.

rick in Alaska

There's always a bright side, somewhere. Sometimes, it just takes a lot of looking, and some creative thinking.

KC_Jones

rick in Alaska said:

There's always a bright side, somewhere. Sometimes, it just takes a lot of looking, and some creative thinking.

Considering everything we know you are going through, you truly are an inspiration. We are all glad you are safe.

Fred

Hi @rick in Alaska , I saw Tanya's update today. Tell her we are all thinking about her and hope she makes it home for Christmas!

Erin Holohan Haskell

So glad you're all ok @rick in Alaska. Our best to Tanya as well.

Gordy

Never been in a quake, couldn’t imagine that burst of energy. been in a pretty good tremor though. In northern Illinois when I was maybe 7. Middle of the night, woke the whole family windows rattling, and all. My dad ran down in the basement thought the water heater blew up.

Glad all is well Rick, and you are a hell of a guy!

rick in Alaska

I only felt one aftershock the next morning, and it was just one big bump. I haven't heard of anyone here in Homer who had any damage to there place, but it looks like Anchorage makes up for it. I don't know how many people saw the pictures, but what I can say is if I owned a liquor store, I would have my bottles contained for events like this. There are a lot of broken bottles up there!
I like to use the flow chart method for troubleshooting and for my life, because I see life in a realist point of view. In other words, I look at a scenario and decide if there is anything I can do about it, and if there is, I do it. If I determine there isn't anything that can be done for it, then I move on. I don't see much point in wasting my time, or stressing myself, over things I have no control over. As they say; "it is what it is".
My wife however, does stress on things, but I am working on that too.
I really appreciate all your support and kind words.
Rick

SlamDunk

I felt a 6.0 while working in Mexico. I was in bed and it felt like this:

https://youtu.be/2CJJ6FrfuGU

Harold

Odd sort of quake sensing. I was standing in a work space on the second floor of a building in Salt Lake City. And I started to feel a bit dizzy. It was like getting seasick on a boat. I was looking out the window and some very high voltage transmission lines were literally dancing and making some serious sparks. Then we lost power.

Epicenter - Yellowstone. Significantly revised the layout of various volcanic attractions.

mikeg2015

Because I'm a nerd, I had to look up hte energy released i na earthquake. A 7.0 quake releases approx. 199 kilotons of energy. In perspective, the A bombs dropped in WWII were 15 & 21 respectively. The duration of course of the release was shorter. Modern nukes are normally around 1200 kilotons with some.

An 8.0 is 6200 kilotons. a 9.0 levels everything is is equal to 99,000 Kilotons! Largest nuke ever detonated was 50 megatons (50,000 kilotons) with the cloud going up 130,000ft in altitude. A 9.0 earthwuake is almost 2x more powerful.

In another comparison, Mt St Helens eruption released 24 megatons of energy.

We are pathetic, even with nuclear weapons compared to the power of nature.

Sal Santamaura

Those of us who live along the Pacific Ring of Fire necessarily suppress most thoughts about earthquakes. If we didn't, we'd soon either go crazy or move somewhere else.

Last week's Alaska earthquake was a mere jiggle compared to the one that hit Anchorage March 27, 1964. On November 30, 2018, magnitude was 7.0 and shaking lasted around one minute. In 1964, magnitude was 9.2 (158 times as strong!) and it went on for 4.5 minutes. Even for someone like me who experienced a 6.1 while 1.5 miles from its epicenter, last century's great Alaska event is difficult to imagine.