Back-to-back earthquakes shatter roads and windows in Alaska

ANCHORAGE, ALASKA >> Back-to-back earthquakes measuring 7.0 and 5.7 shattered highways and rocked buildings Friday in Anchorage, sending people running into the streets and briefly triggering a warning to residents in Kodiak to flee to higher ground for fear of a tsunami.

The warning was lifted without incident a short time later. There were no immediate reports of any deaths or serious injuries.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the first and more powerful quake was centered about 7 miles (12 kilometers) north of Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, with a population of about 300,000. People ran from their offices or took cover under desks.

“We just hung onto each other. You couldn’t even stand,” said Sheila Bailey, who was working at a high school cafeteria in Palmer when the quake struck. “It sounded and felt like the school was breaking apart.”

A large section of an off-ramp near the Anchorage airport collapsed, marooning a car on a narrow island of pavement surrounded by deep chasms in the concrete. Several cars crashed at a major intersection in Wasilla, north of Anchorage, during the shaking.

Anchorage Police Chief Justin Doll said he had been told that parts of Glenn Highway, a scenic route that runs northeast out of the city past farms, mountains and glaciers, had “completely disappeared.”

The quake broke store windows, opened cracks in a two-story building downtown, disrupted electrical service and disabled traffic lights, snarling traffic. It also threw a full-grown man out of his bathtub.

All flights in and out of the airport were suspended for hours after the quake knocked out telephones and forced the evacuation of the control tower. And the 800-mile Alaska oil pipeline was shut down while crews were sent to inspect it for damage.

Anchorage’s school system canceled classes and asked parents to pick up their children while it examined buildings for gas leaks or other damage.

Fifteen-year-old Sadie Blake and other members of the Homer High School wrestling team were at an Anchorage school gymnasium waiting for a tournament to start when the bleachers started rocking “like crazy” and the lights went out. People started running down the bleachers in the dark, trying to get out.

“It was a gym full of screams,” said team chaperone Ginny Grimes.

When it was over, Sadie said, there was only one thing she could do: “I started crying.”

Jonathan Lettow was waiting with his 5-year-old daughter and other children for a school bus near their home in Wasilla when the quake struck. The children got on the ground while Lettow tried to keep them calm.

“It’s one of those things where in your head, you think, ‘OK, it’s going to stop,’ and you say that to yourself so many times in your head that finally you think, ‘OK, maybe this isn’t going to stop,’” he said.

Soon after the shaking stopped, the school bus pulled up and children boarded, but the driver stopped at a bridge and refused to go across because of deep cracks in the road, Lettow said.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin tweeted that her home was damaged: “Our family is intact — house is not. I imagine that’s the case for many, many others.” She posted a video of the inside of her parents’ home, with broken dishes littering the kitchen floor. A large set of antlers appeared to have fallen off a wall of the living room.

Officials opened an Anchorage convention center as an emergency shelter. Gov. Bill Walker issued a disaster declaration.

He said he was in an office building elevator when the earthquake hit. Lights on the control board were blinking and things were falling from the ceiling, but the elevator did not stop, he said.

Cereal boxes and packages of batteries littered the floor of a grocery store, and picture frames and mirrors were knocked from living room walls.