Earthquakes

I feel the need to write about earthquakes, having just experienced on Nov. 30th the most significant earthquake in Anchorage since the 1964 earthquake, which I survived as a child (we lived on the bluff above the inlet, on land that subsequently became Earthquake Park, land that liquified in that 9.2 earthquake, and we were one of four families in our neighborhood that had our house shredded as the bluff slid down to the inlet).

Oddly enough I did have a major earthquake (skyscraper windows in Fayerport shattering and falling down to the streets, etc.) in an earlier draft of Raven, Tell A Story. It was a plot device that didn’t work, and I scrapped it. Though I did have a good description through Tessa’s eyes of the earth rolling in waves. I have read many accounts from the 1964 Alaska earthquake and I remember them all, and the earth rolling as if it was the sea is something that I’ll never get out of my mind.

The 7.1 earthquake we just had on Nov. 30th wasn’t anything like the cataclysmic March 27th, 1964 earthquake, but because it was only a few miles from Anchorage and relatively shallow, we all experienced it as quite violent. There was no gentle, rumbling start from the sound waves traveling for miles to reach the ear seconds before the shaking––this one came on right away, with no warning at all, and within a couple of seconds the roaring and sharp jolting made everyone feel as if a giant had reached out and grabbed the building they were in and was shaking it as hard as possible. Up and down, side to side, and then the other side to side. All in all it lasted nearly one long minute in the part of town I was in. When things began crashing off shelves and pictures on walls crashed and shattered onto the floor, I felt the sheer terror of knowing that it’s another big one, this might be THE one… because that’s what earthquakes do––they render you helpless because they have come out of nowhere so suddenly, and you have no idea how big they are going to be, how long they will last. And the bigger the earthquake, the longer it lasts. And all you can think is this might be the one that kills me.

I’ve carried that fear inside me ever since 1964––the fear that there might be another big one that will kill me. And sure enough, we did have a pretty big one, but it didn’t kill anybody, thank God. And maybe now that I’ve experienced another pretty big one, maybe that fear will be slightly lessened. We’ll see. I do know that it won’t keep me from coming back to this, my second home. And my heart goes out again and again to victims of earthquakes in so many parts of our world.