The Great Alaska Earthquake is also known as the Good Friday Earthquake. This struck at 5:36 p.m. on March 27, 1964. On the Richter scale it had a magnitude of 8.2 to 8.7, which was the most horrible earthquake in North America. The "Ring of Fire" is where most earthquakes occur. This earthquake was felt over 500,000 square miles of surface. There was also a park dedicated to the earthquake called Earthquake Park.

Question: Were you or anyone you know injured during the earthquake? If yes please explain.

Answer: "No, there were very few injuries."

Question: Was your home or any place you know of destroyed? If yes, please explain.

Answer: "Our house wasn't destroyed, but there were a lot of cracks. Also during the earthquake in our kitchen, many of the food and glass items in the cabinets came crashing down. So when the earthquake was over there was a huge mess of glass and food all over the floor. About two blocks of Downtown on 4th Avenue just totally sank into the ground. Government Hill Elementary school also just practically broke in half, and about three blocks of Turnagain's homes were totally destroyed."

Question: What was your experience with the earthquake like?

Answer: "I was about eight years old, and I was watching TV when the earthquake occurred. My dad came into the living room yelling, "Everybody out of the house!" When our family came out all the other families began to come out. Then we all huddled in a little group in the middle of the road, so we couldn't fall down. The ground was moving and rippled a lot. I was very scared and I remembered asking my mom if everything was going to be okay, and then her looking at my father and asking the same thing. The neighbors' birch tree swayed so much that there were imprints in the snow of it smacking the ground back and forth. I went to Airport Heights Elementary, and they wound up being one of the main shelters for people whose homes were destroyed. So I wound up being out of school for two to three weeks. My dad was a police officer, so we didn't see him a lot for the next few weeks. A lot of our neighbors lost their heating system, and we didn't, so we had about five families stay at our house for a couple weeks. Since Easter was only a little while away, we shared our Easter baskets with all of the people that stayed with us at our house. There was also no water, so we melted snow and put chlorine in it as a disinfectant. Our mom also went to the store and bought a lot of Kool-aid to cover up the disgusting taste of the chlorine."

Question: Do you know an estimation of how long it took to replace all of the roads and buildings?

Answer: "Years! Most of the buildings that were damaged were just bulldozed, so I would say about six months."

Question: How did your life style change after the earthquake, if it did change?

Answer: "Well, my mother decided that our home wasn't safe any more so we wound up moving. Before this horrible earthquake I used to think that earthquakes were fun, but now I get really terrified whenever there is one."

Question: And if you have any other things about your life or experiences with this earthquake you would like to share?

Answer: "I've learned that during this natural disaster, it was very interesting how everyone pitched in and shared everything."