By KLAS STOLPE
Sentinel Staff Writer
Sitka resident Keith Perkins had a meeting in Anchorage on Sunday as part of the Alaska Sports Hall of Fame selection committee and decided he would go up a few days early to watch the state high school 1A/2A and mixed-6 state volleyball championships.
“My older son and his wife live there,” Perkins said. “And it was going to be fun to go watch some volleyball. It was going to be a fun long weekend.”
Sitka resident Keith Perkins today recounts his experiences in Anchorage during Friday’s earthquakes. (Sentinel Photo by James Poulson)
After a busy day and night of watching, cheering and visiting old sports colleagues, Perkins was enjoying Friday morning on his son Nicholaas’ couch. Nicholaas’ wife Danielle, just awake after a long night of college engineering classes, was showering for another day of school.
The two had moved across town so Danielle could be near to the University of Alaska Anchorage and Nicholaas to his job as a civilian contractor at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. Their home is off Boniface parkway, directly across the Glenn Highway from the military base. It happened to be near the epicenter of Friday’s 7.0 and 5.7 earthquakes.
“The first thing was this rumbling,” Perkins said. “Then we feel the shaking and then a violent kick, just massive.”
As items tumbled from shelves, father and son struggled to their feet. Danielle had only time to grab a long towel as she fled the bathroom. The three ran toward the door.
“By the time we got outside onto the porch, I have never been so terrified in my life,” Perkins said. “It was such a violent shaking. They were hanging onto the porch railing, I think I was hanging onto the doorknob. We were helpless. I have never been thrown around so much. Nicholaas is a big guy and he was being thrown about like a piece of paper.”
Perkins said it was comparable to being inside a sardine can battered in the roughest seas imaginable.
“I am surprised that where they live, or anybody around them, that the structures were intact,” he said. “It was so violent… much more than being banged about.”
The rumbling sound persisted and their ears popped as atmospheric pressures changed.
“It was such a scary, eerie feeling,” he said.
Anchorage had a low cloud cover and power poles were emitting flashes of green light as power lines snapped.
“They were going off everywhere,” he said. “I don’t have a comparison in my own mind but my son, that ominous rumbling sound and these flashes in downtown Anchorage – Nicholaas is around all these military guys – and in his mind he is saying this is not an earthquake, this is an invasion or attack.”
Perkins said he was surprised to learn later that the 7.0 quake lasted only 20 seconds.
“It felt like 10 years,” he said. “We go back inside and see the damage, and then the second one, even though it was 5.7, in our minds it was just as scary… In my mind I thought this was the end, not knowing if it would stop, it is more than terrifying because you are helpless. You don’t know what will happen next while this violence is going on around you.”
They spent all day into the evening picking up between the aftershocks.
Even their two dogs, a pit bull and a black Lab, were spent.
“The pit bull was in my lap after dinner that night,” Perkins said. “And even when we had a big shaker the dog didn’t even move, he was emotionally toast, he just looked at me. That was what I noticed the most Saturday morning, just how worn out we were. That night I slept through a tremor that my son and his wife were running to the door in. It was emotionally exhausting.”
With all of the visiting student athletes in town, the state athletics association tried to keep some semblance of normalcy. The volleyball tournament was postponed a day and then moved from Dimond High School to Anchorage Christian School where the structure was unscathed.
“What I was really impressed by was ACS inspecting their facility and offering it up and hosting it,” Perkins said. “ASAA didn’t charge anyone to attend. We had all these teams that had traveled in. That other piece, those student athletes had to get emotionally prepared to play after all this. Teams were worn out after living through aftershocks. I was so impressed to watch coaches and players and the city come together, but by Saturday night it was so nice to have a quiet evening at home.”
Anchorage School District Superintendent Deena Bishop announced on Sunday that all schools would be closed for the week while crews work to repair the damage the earthquakes caused to district school buildings. The University of Alaska Anchorage and the UAA Eagle River campuses closed and are to be reopened on Wednesday.
Sitka educator Karla Horner Raffaele was attending a school conference in Anchorage and was at her hotel wthen the earthquake hit. In an email to the Sentinel she described it as “like a roller coaster ride while standing up and in the dark. After the earthquake stopped everyone headed to the fire escape to get out of the hotel.”
More than 1,000 aftershocks were recorded through Sunday, The majority were 2.7 or smaller, a dozen were over 4.5.
State seismologist Mike West said the 7.0 quake was the most significant temblor in Alaska since the disastrous 1964 earthquake. That 9.2 quake was the most powerful in U.S. history and second in the world only to the 9.5 quake in Chile in 1960.
Although no casualties were reported in the weekend quakes in Anchorage, the damage from the earthquakes aftershocks briefly shut down Anchorage’s Ted Stevens International Airport and the Alaska oil pipeline.
The quake ripped up sections of freeways and train tracks and shut down water and electric service to areas of Anchorage.
The city said today that power and communications had been restored to the 50,000 homes affected, and repairs were under way on the other utility systems.
