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Robert Bucari – Elmendorf AFB

I was stationed at Elmendorf AFB in 1964 when the earthquake occurred. I was in the base BX store when the shelves and light fixtures began to shake violently. Some said it was an earthquake and to get outside. I made it to the parking lot. I saw the parking lot moving in waves that looked like waves on an ocean. The walls of the base gym which was next door were moving back and forth as if they were made of rubber. The corner of the walls stated to come loose and some bricks fell. Someone shouted that it was an act of God because it was Good Friday. One man in the parking lot was trying to grab the door handle of his car but was having difficulty because it was bouncing up and down so much. When it finally stopped I went back to the barracks. The next day I went to work in the hanger where I worked on aircraft. Some of the metal cross beams which supported the roof of the hanger had come loose because the rivets had snapped.

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Bill Woosley – Anchorage

I was 10 years old and my family lived on 8th Street in Anchorage. I remember when the quake hit I ran out the back door, circled the block, and all of the parked cars were slamming back and forth into each other. My dad was in the doorway of our house and yelling for me to come to him, I was just panicked and running down the street. I guess I thought that there was somewhere that was not shaking. The Four Seasons Apartments were just down the street, I remember that when it fell there was a huge mushroom cloud like we had seen in school films about atomic bombs. To this very day, the smallest earthquake scares me spitless. My older sister was just entering the doors at Penney’s when some high school friends drove down the road and called to her and her friend. The front of Penny’s came down right where they had been standing. They barely escaped being victims. I have a bunch of old newspapers from those days that my Dad left me. I have no idea what to do with them.

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Dave Rice – Government Hill

In 1964 I was 7. I lived on Ash Place in Government Hill about two blocks from the elementary school, which I attended. I was sledding on our favorite hill on the other side of E. Loop Rd. and was walking up the hill when the first tremor hit.

The first thing I remember was the water tower at the top of the hill making a lot of noise. My worst fear during the whole thing was that the tower would fall on me! After losing my footing and sliding to the bottom of the hill, I tried to stand up but the earth was moving in waves. It was like being on the surface of the ocean, with waves of earth passing underneath me. The next thing I noticed was spruce trees hitting the ground on either side as these waves passed underneath them. Next were the cracks in the earth propagating around me. I remember seeing 2-3″ cracks opening up and running for tens of feet. It is amazing how, after 40 years, the memories of that thirty minutes are still so vivid.

My oldest brother has even better stories. He was 17 and was moving furniture on the third (top) floor of the JC Penney building when the outside walls fell away. He remembers looking out of the building and seeing the destruction in the Fourth St. area as it was happening.

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Penny

My family lived on the 13th floor of the L Street Apt’s. I was only 8 years old but I remember that day vividly. My stepfather was talking to his brother on the phone when the quake began. He yelled, Oh my God, we’re having an earthquake! The phone went dead. That’s how Seattle found out about it. I have a magazine with many photos of that horrible day, including the apt building we lived in. Thank you for an informative site and the stories are healing for me. I, like many others, am still terrified of loud rumbling noises and I run when there’s an earthquake. (I live in the northwest). You won’t find me under a table or in a doorway……

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Robert Williams – Eielson Air Force Base Account

Eielson AFB, Alaska, is located about 25 miles southeast of Fairbanks in the interior of Alaska.

I was 9 years old living on Eielson Air Force Base, my dad was at his second job at the N.C.O. club, My two brothers, mom & I were just sitting down to supper when the quad plex we lived in started shaking violently. The house tilted and the cabinet doors flew open when glasses and dishes were crashing on the floor. I hopped on the counter and was closing the cabinets. The ground in the front yard looked like water, waves. It happened so instantly that we really didn’t get scared, more of an adrenaline euphoria and excitement came over us. When it was over we went outside and everything was OK except the yard looked as if it had been roughed up. Then for a while the tremors would pass through. I can remember many quakes at night in Alaska, sometimes the aftershock was worse than the first quake. But not on Good Friday in 1964.

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Susan Erlwein Davis – Kenai

March 27th, 1964…, what a day. I was 18 years old, a senior at Kenai High School. My sister Kathy was 16. We got off the school bus and walked the mile and a half of our homestead road to our cabin on Longmere Lake. I fixed our dinner and was doing the dishes when the quake hit. I remember the water in the sink stood up sideways, and then fell back down. We didn’t have doors on the kitchen cupboards and things started falling out all around me. My sister started to become hysterical so I chased her around the cabin, held on to her, and told her we were going outside. I opened the door. The trees were laying on the ground one minute and upright the next, then back down again Then, the lake started to crack open and the mud from the bottom shot many feet up into the air. It looked like the cracks were headed straight for us, so we huddled there in the doorway until the shaking finally quit. I didn’t think it would ever stop, it felt like forever.

The main phone lines were out, but we were on a party line, so the neighbors were all picking up their receivers and checking on each other. My boyfriend and his family lived about 2 miles away, and thankfully his dad decided to drive down and check on us. He knew our parents and other siblings were in Anchorage for the day. I must have been in shock because I told him we were fine. He started driving up the hill, then stopped and backed down. He told me my face was white as a ghost, and that we were going home with him. I was so very grateful. They had six children at the time, and lived in a 10×55 mobile home, but made room for us. It was cozy and comforting. We all sat around listening to the battery radio, and waiting for news.

It was at least a day before we heard that the rest of our family was OK, and then it took my mom 3 days to get home since the Kenai River Bridge, and most of the Portage bridges were out. She told us that right before the earthquake started, she and my sister were on their way to J.C.Penney’s to go shopping, but that she changed her mind and they drove by the store, and on down to 19th Ave. where they were staying with friends. She was sure happy she made that decision.

While we were cleaning up all the mess in the cabin, Mom pounded a nail in one of the log beams and hung a wrench up on it so we could watch for the aftershocks.

To this day, any earth shake brings back all the vivid details, and the fear.

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Tom Mealer – California Tsunami

I was 8 years old when the earthquake happened. I was fishing with my dad, a friend and his dad in Laguna Beach in Southern California. We were fishing from a rocky promontory about 8 feet above sea level. This huge wave came out of nowhere. It seemed 20 feet tall. My dad rushed me against a cliff edge, which saved us from being dragged into the water. Many others were not so lucky, including my friend.

I remember we got him out of the swells that kept coming ashore. My friend’s dad and my dad were able to secure and rescue my friend as the waves kept pushing him against the rocks. He was battered and bruised but did not require more attention than the nearby lifeguards could give him. Others were not so lucky. Some people who were not pulled out within the first few incoming swells had to be hospitalized for their injuries.

It was a few years before I matured enough to find out I was in a tsunami. Another few years to realize where the tsunami came from. As I lived along the San Andreas Fault line, I have been at the epicenter of two earthquakes, 6.7 in 1971 in S. California and a 7.0 quake in Santa Cruz in N. California. Neither was as dramatic or as personally damaging as an earthquake from over 2,000 miles away. As an aside to this, I was skin diving many years later and found the fishing pole that belonged to my friend’s father. It had not been in that spot the previous year and came to see it to verify it was his missing pole.

Tom Mealer – Laguna Beach, California

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Sue Walcott – Mountain View

I was ten years old the day of the earthquake. My father was stationed at Elmendorf Air Force Base, but we lived in Mountain View. My parents and my brother had gone to the base to get groceries and run errands. This was the first time they had allowed me to stay home.

I had played for a little while and then lay down on my bed, and was taking a short nap when I woke up because my bed shaking. I soon realized it was out in the middle of the floor. I tried to get off the bed and walk up a hallway, but that was difficult. It was like trying to walk on one of those fun house walks that move up and down. As I made my way through the house, everything was moving and things were falling off the walls. My mom’s dishes were falling out of the cabinets. The food in the refrigerator and cabinets was everywhere. I remember sounds like a guitar being strummed by something else. (I think the TV was hitting it) There were all kinds of crashing sounds from the things that were falling. I finally made my way out to the porch steps as we lived in a duplex. I sat down and watched the Earth literally roll just like waves of the ocean. There was no cracking or crevasses being made just wave-like rolling ground which seemed to last forever. As I sat there our landlord had pulled up at the beginning of the quake. When it finally stopped, he told me to stay put, and drove back to his house to see about his wife.

It seemed like forever, but my parents finally came home. My dad had gone to his work and my mom and brother had been at the BX, but at the time it happened they were thrown over into the snow.

We did not have much damage to our home, but we were not allowed to use the water or our heat. My dad being in supply was able to access most things for our needs at the time. It was a little chilly though. There were many aftershocks. I think they were scarier that the initial quake. I know before this I had no idea about earthquakes.

When we finally went back to school I remember we had to share our building with Government Hill Elementary because their building had slid downhill. We went in the afternoon and they went in the morning.

I remember my mom used to have a newspaper and other pictures, but I never did find any of them in things when she died. My family was all safe, but this was an event that still shakes me today.