Locals, and even folks thousands of miles away, were telling stories Monday about the major earthquake that hit central Alaska Sunday — a 7.9 temblor that damaged supports to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, opened six-foot-wide cracks in highways and created giant waves on lakes and ponds not just in Alaska but around the continent. No deaths or serious injuries were reported from the quake that was felt as far away as Louisiana.

Locals, and even folks thousands of miles away, were telling stories Monday about the major earthquake that hit central Alaska Sunday — a 7.9 temblor that damaged supports to the trans-Alaska oil pipeline, opened six-foot-wide cracks in highways and created giant waves on lakes and ponds not just in Alaska but around the continent. No deaths or serious injuries were reported from the quake that was felt as far away as Louisiana.

‘SHOOK SO BAD’  
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        Jay Capps, who owns a small grocery store midway between Tok and Glennallen, said he felt a low-level shaking for 15 or 20 seconds before the quake hit.
      “It shook so bad you could not stand up on the front porch,” Capps said. “It sounded like the trees were breaking roots under the ground.” He said nearly everything fell off store shelves.
      “My store smells like liquid smoke, picante sauce and mayonnaise,” he said.
      Randy Schmoker, a metal worker in Porcupine Creek who’s also a big game hunter and usually enjoys short earthquakes, said this one was different. “A charging brown bear I can handle,” he said. “This scared the hell out of me.”
      And at the Perch Resort, a lodge and restaurant near Denali National Park, the entire inventory of wine was lost, said owner Leslie LeQuire.
      About a dozen customers were eating in the restaurant at the time. “The customers who were here were so awesome, they all stayed to help clean up,” she said.
      Three major highways were damaged:
The George Parks Highway between Anchorage and Fairbanks.
The Alaska Highway near Northway, about 250 miles southeast of Fairbanks.
The Richardson Highway, which parallels the pipeline between Valdez and Fairbanks, was closed after gaps opened that were 2-to-6 foot wide and 5 feet deep. Along another section, the ground on one side of the highway had dropped more than 2 feet.
      The worst reports of damage were along a two-mile stretch of the Tok Cutoff, where numerous rock slides and hundreds of yards of 6-foot openings in the road could be seen.  
     

   
 
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RIPPLE EFFECT ELSEWHERE  
 


November 4 — Houseboats in Seattle were damaged by Alaska’s earthquake. KING-TV’s Pat McReynolds reports.



        The quake created a ripple effect thousands of miles away — from the bayous of Louisiana to lakes in the Seattle area.
      In the New Orleans area — more than 3,000 miles away — residents saw water slosh about as a result of the quake’s awesome power.
      In Mandeville, La., Carol Barcia saw boats bounce around from the deck of her house. “One poor guy across the canal from us fell off his sail boat,” she said.
      On Seattle’s Lake Union — more than 1,400 miles south — waves shook some houseboats loose from their moorings and some slammed into docks, causing minor damage. Nobody was hurt.
      Experts say such an effect is common during powerful quakes.
      “This earthquake was shallow and the energy went directly into the surface and that is what causes these effects so far away,” said Dale Grant, a geophysicist with the National Earthquake Information Center.
      Grant said he received calls from nuclear power facilities in various states — including Minnesota and Washington — that reported unusual water movement.
     
PIPELINE SUPPORTS
      Mike Heatwole, spokesman for the Alyeska Pipeline Service Co., said officials would know by midmorning Monday how long it will take to restart the 800-mile pipeline. He did not know whether North Slope crude oil deliveries would be disrupted.
      Pipeline support structures were damaged, but the pipeline itself was intact, Heatwole said.
      The quake triggered a detection system, and operators manually shut down the pipeline about 2 p.m. The oil flow can be stopped for maintenance or other reasons without affecting oil deliveries because reserves are stores in tanks at the shipping terminal in Valdez.
      Vertical support members, H-shaped devices that hold up the above ground portions of the pipeline, were damaged in five places. In eight locations, the “shoes” that connect the pipeline to the vertical support members were on the ground, leaving the pipeline hanging without that support bar, Heatwole said.
      Repair crews were working to reduce stress on the pipeline. “We’ll also be mobilizing several additional crews at first light,” Heatwole said.
      The oil flow in the pipeline can be manually stopped for maintenance or other reasons without affecting oil deliveries.
     
PAST QUAKES
      Earthquakes above magnitude 7 are considered major — capable of widespread, heavy damage.
      In 1964, the “Good Friday” earthquake left 131 people dead in Alaska. Current measurements put that quake’s magnitude at 9.2.  

     

   
 
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      A moderate earthquake also shook the central Plains earlier Sunday. The 4.3 quake hit some 30 miles northwest of O’Neill, Neb..
      Moderate earthquakes also shook Indonesia and Pakistan earlier Sunday, but the activity is not related nor unusual, said Waverly Person, geophysicist at U.S. Geological Survey.
      “On any given day, we located about 50 earthquakes throughout the world,” Person said. “This to us is pretty normal.”
      He said the death toll from an Italian quake last week may have made more people notice the quake activity.
      “They begin to think all of this adds up, but it doesn’t,” Person said.

Latest from Bab "B.S." Streisand:

"This earthquake is the work of Bush' oil company buddies to artificially reduce the supply of oil and increase their profit.  Everybody should conserve fuel by driving Geo Metro, othewise I would not be able to afford my private jets, yatchs, and limousines, and would have to come out of my retirement (yet again)."

And oil is up........12 cents a barrel.