June 1, 2004

• Small World

  
  In
  late October and early November of 2002, two earthquakes hit on the
  Denali fault north of here.  I felt the first one and then waited
  for the other shoe to drop.  Things just felt… tense.  A
  week and a half later, I was here at the computer when things started
  shaking.

  First, I heard it, a rumble, then out the window in front of me I saw
  trees waving–not just the tops like when the wind blows, but the whole
  tree.  Some of them banged into each other and branches
  fell.  The oil tank just outside the window was jumping on its
  rack.  Then the wave hit the trailer.

  Walls and roof popped and creaked, and it just kept going on and
  on.  Doug was asleep on the floor nearby, and when I saw the big
  old heavy TV that is our monitor for the PS2 start jumping on its table
  over his head, I yelled at him to move away from it.  I kept my
  seat here, just barely.

  Immediately, I went to the Tsunami Warning Center’s website–too soon
  for any info.  Then I went to NOAA’s near-real-time earthquake
  site–same thing.  I had both windows open and kept refreshing
  until one of them told me something.  Very soon I had the info and
  had sent my “felt” report.  A few rocks and carvings had fallen
  from shelves here, and both the trailer and the cabin next to it had
  settled at slightly different angles from before.  The ground
  around here was cracked in some places where it had cracked before, and
  in a few new places, too.  Other than that, we personally
  experienced no damage.  Then for days
  and weeks more news trickled in.

  None of the regularly scheduled trains ran by here for weeks, only
  occasional work trains on their way to the area north of Talkeetna
  where the earth had swallowed some track.  The quake triggered the
  automatic shut-down on the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and no oil flowed out
  to the tankers in Valdez habor for a few days while crews checked for
  damage.  Many of us felt and expressed relief on learning that
  the auto shut-off worked.  A few weeks after the quake someone
  flew over a remote area and photographed a huge avalanche that had been
  triggered by it.  We saw pictures of the highway with big gaps and
  cracks several feet wide.  It took months for transportation in
  that area to get back to normal.

  The later, larger, magnitude 7.9 quake occurred at 64° North, 148°
  West.  Yellowstone National Park is at 44° North, 110° West, over
  2,000 miles away.   The temperatures of some of the geysers
  there, and their eruption intervals, changed immediately after the
  quake.  Most of them had returned to their pre-quake state within
  weeks, but some small changes persist even now.

  Yahoo! News – Study: Alaska Earthquake Affected Geysers

  quake details / photos 

  And in other news…
  Have you heard about the “Active Denial System,” a new non-lethal
  anti-personnel weapon?  I’ve read the recent news stories and
  earlier magazine pieces.  They make it sound almost humane…
  almost.  I wonder why I keep getting these shudders when I think
  about it.  I just get this sick feeling….

  Minneapolis Star Tribune “Beam Burns into the Future”
  

  • 3:12 am
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