Alaska Earthquake and Tsunami, 1964

The 1964 Anchorage, Alaska, earthquake and the resulting tsunami struck without warning on Good Friday, March 27.

It was a quiet spring day in Anchorage, a holiday. Temperatures were seasonably mild with a moderate amount of snow on the ground. Children had the day off from school, and customer traffic in the stores downtown was light. Many residents were preparing or enjoying dinner at home. At 5:36 p.m. a major earthquake began to shake the ground, and the earth beneath Southcentral Alaska moved in waves for the next four long minutes.

Parents and children slipped, stumbled and fell on shifting floors in a panicked effort to get outdoors to escape breaking windows. Two inch cracks appeared in the ground in many places. Roads wrinkled and split and Fourth Avenue in downtown Anchorage broke apart and collapsed 10 feet or more. The Government Hill Elementary School twisted, shifted and became unusable in a moment. The outside wall of the J.C. Penney building crashed to the street. In the Turnagain residential district the ground liquefied like quicksand, slid away, and swallowed up 75 or more homes.

The four minute earthquake released the energy roughly equivalent to 10 million times the force of an atomic bomb. The mass of the earth and ocean absorbed most of the force, but manmade structures in the area could not absorb the rest of the force without suffering massive damage. Total property damage was estimated at $500 million.

Anchorage was crippled as gas lines and water lines were severed abruptly. Residents resorted to melting snow for water while awaiting repairs. Four days later students returned to available schools as life in Anchorage began to recover.

The Earthquake

The center of the Alaska earthquake was located about 75 miles east of Anchorage and about 55 miles west of Valdez. It began 14 to 16 miles deep in the earth