Cape Breton Post

Disasters have happened here

For the most part, they’ve been minor except for one in 1929

- Lila Carson

GLACE BAY

10:30-11 a.m., Storytime at the Glace Bay Library for all children, ages 3 and up.

11-1 p.m., Christmas luncheon at Knox United Church. Admission is $8 and includes meat pies, desserts, tea and coffee, baked goods and a new-to-you country store.

2-4 p.m., Fall hours for the Glace Bay Heritage Museum in the Old Town Hall, including Isabelle Harris Gift Shop and book store, located at 14 McKeen St., are in effect. For informatio­n call, 902-842-5345.

4-8 p.m., Kitchen Party, Army and Navy Club.

NEW WATERFORD

8 p.m., (CS) Arcano Group AA, 401 Ling St.

PORT MORIEN

2-4 p.m., Christmas tea and sale at St. Paul’s Anglican Church. Admission $5.

SUNDAY DOMINION

10 a.m. Hymn sing at House of Healing, 3 Commercial St., with 11 a.m. Christian non denominati­onal service. All ages welcome. Fellowship following service with Pastor Michael Morrison.

7:30 p.m., Tarabish, Shamrock Club, Commercial Street. All money returned in prizes.

GLACE BAY

11 a.m., (CD) AA Glace Bay Alano meeting, Rear 10 McKeen St.

2 p.m., Annual Christmas party for the St. Joseph’s Hospital Alumnae will be held at St. Anne’s Church. All alumnae are invited to attend.

8 p.m., (CS) AA Glace Bay Alano Group meeting, Rear 10 McKeen St.

8 p.m., 45s at Glace Bay Seniors and Pensioners Hall. Free tea/coffee. No smoking. Cash jackpot. All welcome.

NEW WATERFORD

3-5 p.m., Santa In The Park in Davis Square Park, 3453 Baker Avenue. Live music, treats from Santa, free hot chocolate and guest appearance­s from the 5th New Waterford Sparks, Brownies and Girl Guides and the Charlie Brown Gang.

8 p.m.-12 a.m., Karaoke Jackpot, Royal Canadian Legion, Branch 12 (in the lounge). Pearl & Pepper. Members and guests.

7 p.m., New Waterford Garden Club meet at the fire hall. Phone Susan at 902-862-2144.

PORT MORIEN

4-6 p.m., The Port Morien Legion Chase the Ace.

MONDAY DOMINION

7:30 p.m., Monday night merchandis­e bingo, Dominion Legion. Doors open 6 p.m.

GARDINER MINES

8 p.m., Card game at Gardiner Mines Senior Citizens and Pensioners Hall, Seaside Drive. Cash jackpot. Free tea/coffee.

Recent news of the disastrous Iranian earthquake, made me thankful to live here in Canada where we don’t need to worry about catastroph­ic events such as volcanoes, earthquake­s, floods, or tsunamis.

Or do we?

I googled and found Nova Scotia and New Brunswick had about six earthquake­s last year, albeit “little ones,” usually not above 4.0 on the Richter scale.

And that Thanksgivi­ng Flood we had last year, hmm? That’s hitting too close to home.

But there’s more.

I was listening to an old song, “I Feel the Earth Move Under My Feet,” which brought to mind talking to my 97-year-old friend. She remembered playing, as an eight year old, in the “crack from the earthquake.” This happened in #2 at Third Street around Black Diamond Park.

Her biggest memory was of the ‘modern Alaska solid iron kitchen stove’ they had and her mom saying, “When I saw that stove shaking, I knew something was wrong.”

Another woman told me her father checked the cupboards post-earthquake to find every dish – except one - either cracked or broken.

There were also stories of chimneys being shaken down. There were stories of wells, as far away as Prince Edward Island, having the water table lowered by 25 feet, so they suddenly went dry.

1929 was a big year. The New York Stock Market had crashed; two Avro Avian aircraft had been given to the Cape Breton Flying Club with Bill MacKinlay of Glace Bay making the first Pacific to Atlantic flight in 30 hours. The Great Depression was around the corner and we had an earthquake here in Glace Bay.

It actually happened on November 18, 1929, around 4:34 p.m. Considered the most tragic earthquake in Canada, most of the media coverage concerned the Burin Peninsula in Newfoundla­nd since the epicentre was about 255 km from there.

We felt the effects in Glace Bay as well. With limited education/ communicat­ion at the time, some people didn’t even know what an earthquake or tsunami was. Seismograp­hs were not common meteorolog­ical tools.

The biggest earthquake­s publicized were in 1882, 1909, and 1929. None seemed to have caused much damage, except the 1929, which registered 7.2 on the Richter Scale, at least in Newfoundla­nd.

I assume being further from the epicentre, Glace Bay would have received much less effect. You know the expression, “don’t blink, you’ll miss it.” The earthquake was like that since most people didn’t know it had happened until it was over. Some people thought their furnaces might be exploding or there had been an explosion at the mines. Maybe they were hearing sounds like a freight train rumbling through, or even “a million glass bottles breaking up in the clouds.”

It only lasted seconds, but it was felt as far away as Quebec, and New England. The Dominion seismologi­st at the time, E.A. Hodgson, stated it was a ‘very severe earthquake’ with tremors lasting two minutes with several aftershock­s that night. The Strand Theatre in Sydney made a joke about it, They advertised a movie as “just like the earthquake … this stirring picture will make everyone sit up and take notice!”

Some conflictin­g stories were about 27 kegs of whiskey washing ashore, with people from Glace Bay and Dominion Beach and Lingan sandbar laying claim to it. Hmm, did the police really confiscate all of that whiskey?

Some of the other stories from Newfoundla­nd tell of houses floating out into the water with a baby sleeping upstairs being the only survivor because the rest of the family downstairs had drowned.

Another story told of a house moved about 60 metres into a meadow with a kerosene lamp still burning.

Another person reported their hens all ran for the barn when the shaking started. There were reports of “hundreds of quintals of fish” and “thousands of pounds of smelts” washing ashore after the big waves.

A Cape Breton’s Magazine story reported the quake may have had a warming effect on seawater resulting in a bumper crop of swordfish the next year, with fishermen in surroundin­g areas supposedly harpooning them right from rowboats. In contrast, the tsunami was also blamed for destroying the fishery later in the Great Depression.

The ‘rule of thumb’ is that there won’t be a tsunami unless the earthquake is of magnitude 7.0 and over. The tsunami that followed killed 28 people in Newfoundla­nd and one here in Cape Breton.

When word surfaced about the disaster, $250,000 in donations were received from Canada, U.S., U.K., and Brazil.

Cape Breton’s damage may have only amounted to about $25,000 in damages, while Burin Peninsula’s damage has been reported at anywhere from $1 million to $42 million.

Hard to believe the 7.3 quake in Iran killed 530, injured thousands, and destroyed 15,500 houses.

The Halifax Explosion had two ships blow up with 1,600 people killed, 9,000 injured, and all buildings within 800 metres levelled. And yet here in Glace Bay we had nearly no damage from an earthquake and tsunami.

“Some people thought their furnaces might be exploding or there had been an explosion at the mines. Maybe they were hearing sounds like a freight train rumbling through, or even ‘a million glass bottles breaking up in the clouds.’”

 ??  ?? Cape Breton Community Calendar is a public service listing of community events sponsored by nonprofit groups. To ensure adequate advance publicatio­n, submit notices at least two weeks prior to the event. Limit announceme­nts to 24 words or less. E-mail...
Cape Breton Community Calendar is a public service listing of community events sponsored by nonprofit groups. To ensure adequate advance publicatio­n, submit notices at least two weeks prior to the event. Limit announceme­nts to 24 words or less. E-mail...
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