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Somebody check on JM_

Jm_

Jm_

sled dog's bollocks
Jan 14, 2002
19,921
10,516
AK
So yeah, this was pretty sucky. Like many people, I was at work when it hit, and it hit hard. There was no question get under a desk or something immediately. Under the desk and shit was flying around the office and falling all over the place. Felt like the ground was moving mostly laterally back and forth, but big movements and no way you'd be able to walk. Felt like the building was about to tear apart. It was definitely a "holy fuck, this is it!" movement. The ground up here is all glacial silt and it's the worst possible surface to be on, it just turns to jello with a bunch of movement. There is a term called "liquification" that seismologists use to describe it.

The aftershocks were bad, like every 5 minutes or so for several hours, they were still going on when I thought I'd just get on my fatbike and go tour the city and see what I could see. At least I probably wouldn't be able to feel the aftershocks on fat tires!

Every once and a while, there'd be something like this crack which definitely formed as a result, but it was fairly rare.

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A lot of the ponds and lagoons were cracked all over the place.
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The ice pushed into these platforms in Westchester Lagoon and moved them.
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Wasn't bad for everyone, this guy was swimming around in circles where the ice had opened up some water, seemed to be very pleased with it.
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So here's where the epicenter was, just across the water and to the right of the land. This place where I took the picture is called....Earthquake Park. The 1964 Earthquake caused a huge area of land to slide into the water here.

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Panorama of cracked Jewel Lake ice.
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This is one of the underpasses that goes under a major road. I'm not sure if that crack was there before, it essentially goes the entire length of the road though.
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All in all, things seem to be better than I thought they'd be. There are some big landslides and some of the highways have washed out, there was the one freeway entry ramp that collapsed, but most damage seems to be relatively minor widespread. I saw a few structures attached to houses that appeared bent from the earthquake, but little damage to primary structures. Busted pipes, no electricity, gas leaks, those seem to be the issues, widespread, but not blanketing entire areas, sporadic. I definitely do NOT want to go through that shit again.
 
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