50th Anniversary of Largest Earthquake in US History
Anchorage, Alaska, 1964. At 5:30 PM on March 27th, Good Friday, the ground began to shake. Eyewitness Patrick Sanford’s father stopped his car to see what was wrong with his steering. Airman Patrick Hames thought the rumbling he heard was the thump of footsteps at shift change, while James Midlothian assumed it was a pilot revving his airplane engines; another airman suggested it was a bomb. Easter lilies began to fall off the shelves on top of Merry-Rae Brook and her fellow Girl Scouts, who were selling cookies in a grocery store. The cups in Patrick Keulan’s cupboards began to shake against each other, and a moment later the china hutch fell over.