And There I Was, on this date 50 years ago, 37 days until my 19th birthday. My duty station in the US Army, was Ft. Richardson, Alaska, having arrived there, making my place in the Aviation Company I was assigned, just 26 days on the job. I had been on a day long flight to Ft. Wainwright and back with just the pilot and I onboard. After landing at The Ft. Rich airstrip, it was my job to see that the aircraft was tied down, refueled, oils checked, look for any oil leaks etc, before leaving the flight line. When I went into our flight shack quanset nearby, to hang up my flight helmet, and snoopy scarf and check the board for anything posted in my absence, the ph rang and the guy who answered it said, it was for me. I was invited by a guy who works in Flt Ops to eat homemade pizza at his non-com residence on post for families. Id been there one time before, his wife and two lil girls, one a tricycle motor size, the other barely a walker. He picked me up at the line shack and had to stop at the Commissary to get something his wife needed. He had just turned into the parking lot and took the first open space on his left and parked. I opened my door to get out and the car lurched slightly, I thought someone had bounce the bumper that Keith knew, I was standing, having not shut the door yet, told Keith it mustve been a earthquake bump, aint nobody here, and shut the door. Then all Hell broke loose, I heard a deep growling rumble, I looked in the car, Keith was looking kinda forward and at me, his hands still at 10 and 2 of the clock on the wheel, and a look like he was just dropping off the peak of scaryast ride.! I looked toward the noise in time to see one of the concrete islands the parking lot poles were mounted atop, lean to point the pole at me then lift up 3 or 4 ft and lean the other way, then stand up straight again.! Then, it lifted me up that high and dropped my butt on the ground.! There were three of those waves of the surface in sequence. The two cars nearest me, had rolled back a few feet from the first wave, and I had the wherewithal, to open their doors and put the park brakes on. (the ATs had ratcheted but not held in the P position) People were pouring out of the store, I jumped back in Keiths car, and yelled at him to snap out of it, you better get home, If Id not set those park brakes, the only way out to the street now, would be plugged. When we got to his place, his wife told me to call my Co clerk, they knew where I was going. I told them to come get me, Keith aint leaving. My outfit was put on Alert, and was ready to fly. The next morning, before daylight, many of the helicopters and fixed wing were already loaded or were in the process of all kinds of chit.! I was waved into the 2nd Huey in the string of 3, to leave for Seward, it was near sun-up, and a sight to behold flying over the Seward hiway along side Turnagain Arm.! There was no snow on the peaks of the many I could see at the low altitude we were flying, it had avalanched off, near bare rock was showing, some avalanches reached and buried the hiway, where the hiway was visible and clear, it was ripped and/or cracked with various depths and lengths of messed up surface, the RR fared the best but it was useless now.! On approaching Seward, the black billowing smoke was visible first, then it was kinda sorta a tangled mess. The Tank Farm was ablaze, an AKRR Engine was laying on its side across a street, uphill from the tracks, any tracks I saw were wadded and twisted up like pretzels, the dock was gone, then we orbited the airport! There was a house size block of ice in the middle of the airfield. It had to have broken off Resurrection Glacier (since renamed to Exit in 68 for some dumb reason to me) and the Tidal Wave planted it there. In looking at it from above, I recall, it looked like a clock, all the way around the iceburg, someone had used the Cat 12 grader, to try and push it off the gravel surface., he tried 12 times, and spun 12 holes all around it. When Id made the 2nd R/T to Seward, the military had wrapped it with det-cord and C-4 and blew it to smithereens, or small enuff the Grader could sweep it off the strip and fix his holes, and then the fixed wing heavy haulers, the C-123s and 130s could land. Whittier fared no better, and Valdez also, they were cooking off fuel from their Tank Farms...and that there is what I did the rest of March and April Fools Day, before I got time off to go eyeball the damage in downtown Anchorage afoot with a couple of my buddys...Twas all quite an eye opener for an 18 year old kid from the hills of Oregon...
Posted on: Thu, 27 Mar 2014 12:57:50 +0000
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