West Anchorage High School is on a bluff overlooking Chester Creek. Each structural part of the school suffered a different fate and reacted differently to the shaking. The two-story classroom section was damaged heavily, especially the second-story. Extensive damage was caused by pounding between the gymnasium section and the classroom section. Outside was even worse, especially along the bluff above Chester Creek and a small rotational slump formed north of the school.
Most of the damage done at the port was caused by ground displacements along fractures in the ground, but some damage is attributable to direct seismic shaking. The main pier moved laterally five to nineteen inches. Large longitudinal cracks and several transverse ones opened up, and the walls of several buildings were heavily damaged. Every single gantry cranes were damaged (there were four in all). Steel pilings penetrated the decks the deck of the subordinate pier. Approach roads and railroads moved as much as 18 inches. Two cement storage tanks fell over and were destroyed, one at the property of the Permanent Cement Co. at the entrance to the U.S. Army Dock.
It was around 4:00 o'clock on Good Friday in J.C. Penney's Department Store. Kids were running up and down the aisles with their parents who were complaining of migraines and making their kids wear and try on uncool clothes. Parents were yelling at their kids to quit begging for stuff or yelling at a customer service guy giving them false information. Little did they know that at 5:36 on March 26,1964 the largest recorded earthquake ever to hit North America and the second largest ever to hit the Earth would strike. Later when it did strike the J.C. Penney Department Store literally fell to pieces, since then it has been dismantled and rebuilt.
Scientists now blame the collapsing of the building on "torsion caused by rotational displacements, in turn caused by an eccentric position of the center of rigidity of the structure." This one rotational motion sheared off the entire west wall at the second story level, causing the wall and all overlying floors to collapse! The floor slabs also sheared their connections to the next adjacent wall to the east. The northeast corner of the building collapsed, and most of the precast panels on the north face fell to the street. Two people that worked there reconstructed the events as follows: "The northeast corner of the building collapsed following failure of the east shear wall at that point; the west shear wall then failed at the second-story level at the north end of the building. The north-facing curtain wall must have fallen rather late in the quake. Some motorists reportedly were able to start their parked cars and move them away from below the wall before it fell. One motorist who ran to her car in an attempt to move it, however, was trapped and killed."