This was no ordinary quake! What constitutes ordinary? Short and jolting is what we call ordinary. This was a quake that lasted a couple minutes. The longer a quake lasts, the more damage that occurs.

I was laying on my bed reading a magazine when I heard a noise like a rat scratching in the wall (I have a tree that sometimes scratches along the side of the house but this was right beside me and there's no tree there). Then I felt the bed start to sway back and forth. Then the door started moving back and forth. My walk-in closet doors started swinging in and out. The wind chimes in the living room were going mad "jingle jingle jingle."

When something like this happens, you don't really know what to do! So I just sat there looking around, in awe, wondering if it was ever gonna stop or if it was gonna get bigger and bigger. It went on for about a minute like that and then got progressively stronger. After it quieted down but was still rolling, I got up and went into the living room to see how bad it was out there. The blinds were going back and forth, the little twisty things that open and close them swinging madly, the plants swaying back and forth. This quake lasted a couple of minutes, maybe three minutes, not sure. It just wouldn't stop! Miraculously, there was no damage to my home.

My daughter was in the car with her dad driving her back to my place so they didn't feel the earthquake. I talked to my sister, who was driving also, and she thought the wind was blowing. She pulled over to the side of the road and then the car started rocking. AGH!!!

All in all, it felt kinda like you were on a boat, swaying back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Now this is just from Anchorage. I heard in the Valley where my parents live they had it a lot worse. This would be maybe 90-100 miles from the epicenter. They don't have a phone so I haven't talked to them yet..... There were reports that things fell of the shelves at the grocery stores. EEK!

And I have friends in Fairbanks (90 miles north of the epicenter) and haven't heard from them yet so I'm not sure how they're faring. News reports said that there was a lot of damage in that area, that items fell off shelves, cupboards opened and emptied, furniture shifted around and walls/plaster cracked. All the major highways up there are more or less impassable at one point or another with 4 foot gaps 6-8 foot deep. Even the Alcan Highway thru Canada was damaged. The TransAlaska Oil Pipeline suffered damage too. Some of the supports (shaped like an H) gave way and the pipeline is kinda just hanging there. It didn't burst or break anywhere, but the supports gave way so the pipeline is shut down.

This was the 2nd biggest earthquake in the United States in the past 100 years! The biggest quake was the 1964 quake in Alaska that measured 9.2 on the Richter Scale.

I guess at this point, we're all okay up here in Alaska. One person was injured (an elderly lady I believe) trying to get out of her house. Some Cagleprayers that another big one doesn't hit us anytime soon would be SO GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!! As it is, there have been quite a few aftershocks, some up to 5.1. This is the same area where we had a 6.7 quake on October 23, just 2 weeks ago. WHEW!!!!!

To view info on other Alaskan quakes, recent or long ago (like the 1964 big one), go to http://www.aeic.alaska.edu/Seis/

To view info on quakes throughout the rest of the United States and the world, go to http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ak/archives.html

Major U.S. earthquakes

Date Richter Where Effect

Nov 3, 2002 7.9 Near Cantwell Damages trans-Alaska pipeline, roads

Feb 28, 2001 6.8 Southwest of Seattle Briefly closes Sea-Tac Airport

Oct 16, 1999 7.0 California's Mojave Desert Knocks out power to thousands

Jan 17, 1994 6.7 Northridge, Calif. Kills 72, injures 9,000

June 28, 1992 7.3 Landers, San Bernadino, Calif. Kills a Yucca Valley boy, injures 400

Oct 17, 1989 7.1 San Francisco "World Series" quake kills 67, causes $7 billion in damage

Oct 1, 1987 5.9 Whittier, Calif. Kills 8

Feb 9, 1971 6.5 California's San Fernando Valley Kills 65

March 27, 1964 9.2 Prince William Sound Good Friday earthquake kills 131 people

April 13, 1949 7.1 Olympia, Wash. Kills 8

March 10, 1933 6.3 Long Beach, Calif. Kills 115

April 18, 1906 7.8 San Francisco Earthquake and fires levels San Francisco, kills 700 people

The quake occurred at 1:12 Alaska time, which would have been 2:12 Washington and California time, 3:12 Colorado time, 4:12 Texas time and 5:12 Ohio time. Think what you were doing at that time. {think think think} Did you feel a little rumble? I heard it was felt as far away as Louisiana!!! Water in the swimming pools, ponds, lakes, etc. was sloshing around. Care to go surfing! WAA HAA HAA! Thanks for all your caring you great Cagleheads!!!!! Alaska loves ya!

Hehe, whoever sees Chris next needs to tell him to get his butt up to Alaska to see you, because the earthquake scared you can your only wish is to see him in concert!!! Or something like that. I've had WAY too much sugar tonight, and I need to study for midterms Wed...Okay, nighty night!!!

Meghan

In talking with one of my sisters last night, she informed me that her son and one of his cousins were snow machining on Sunday up at {guess where???} Paxxon, which is very close to the epicenter (if not the epicenter) of the quake. They had just come down off the mountain and were loading up their snow machines in their trucks when the quake hit! They said their trucks started moving around immediately, and they were trying to finish loading up their vehicles so they could get outa there but they couldn't stand up!! Each time they tried, they fell back down. There were a bunch of other people up there snowmachining as well and all of them were experiencing the same thing, rubber legs collapsing under them. Avalanches started coming down the mountains, landslides started coming down. They were pretty scared. They said their trucks were bouncing 2 feet off the ground (don't know if I believe that one, but I can see them shifting around...). They also said the ground was opening up around them and then closing back up. ACK!

They and their friends are all okay. As soon as they could get off the ground, they jumped in their trucks and high tailed it out of there. They said the highway heading back (about 170 miles due north they were though driving it's about 330) was cracked and/or buckled in some places but they gunned their engines and flew over them. OH MY! It's almost exciting but it's scarier than heck! Poor kids! (Well, they're actually 18 and 21.)

I saw in this morning's newspaper that the highways are so badly cracked and gaping in some places that a vehicle could fall into them! Here's first hand accounts of people caught in the quake and a couple of truck drivers from today's newspaper, along with some pictures of one of the highways and house damage. http://adn.com/front/story/2080512p-2178267c.html

Thank God no one was killed. WHEW!!!!!