She Wrote an Earthquake Letter

by Pamela Eichelberger Curry

photo courtesy of Grover Wright

My name is Pamela, and I was just 4 years old when the 1964 earthquake struck.

We were living in Anchorage and my mother, Mildred Eichelberger, wrote an emotional letter to her mother and father on March 31, 1964, just 4 days after the quake.

Her letter describes our experience during the 9.2 earthquake on Good Friday, March 27, 1964, in Anchorage, Alaska.

My Father, Arthur Eichelberger, worked for the “Weather Bureau”. He was a Forecaster at Elmendorf Air Force Base, since 1960. Alaska became a state in 1959.

“Dear Mother and Daddy,


I am writing just one letter to all to let you know just what happened at our house when the earthquake hit and what has happened since then.

On Friday, March 27th, We had an early supper and I had just finished washing the dishes when I started to feel things shake a little. I turned around, went into the living room and could feel that things were really shaking, and then I heard things falling in the kitchen.

I went back into the kitchen and things were falling in all directions.

Holly 8, and Susan 6, were in the playroom. They started to come out, but things were falling all over the place, and they couldn't stand up.

So we told them to just lay on the floor in the hall and to stay there until we told them to get up. They did what we said because they were too scared to get up. But they didn't cry until it was all over with. Holly was really worked up from all this.

I turned around to the dining area and saw the lamps and organ bench falling. Then I saw the organ about to fall over. But I got there in time and was able to keep it from falling.

At the same time, the back door came open, and I could hear things falling in the garage. At that time, I thought Pamela, 4, was on the floor in the hall with Holly and Susan, but she wasn't.

I called for her, but there was no answer.

3 or 4 more times I called for her while trying to get to the bedrooms, but she wasn't there.

Finally, Art heard me and told me she was outside.

As I tried to get to the front door, I fell to the floor, and I guess I ended up crawling to the front door. While it seemed like forever, I finally made it.

I called out to Pamela and one of the neighbors answered back, saying she was there and was OK.

Our babysitter had Pamela and another child with her on the ground, a couple of houses from ours.

We are so thankful that we are all still alive, and that no one was hurt.

There are many that weren’t as lucky as we have been.

We went to church on Easter morning and learned that one family, that we know, lost their house. One family from the Weather Bureau lost their house, and three more might be able to rebuild.

We had no heat, electricity, or water after the earthquake.

On Saturday morning around 11 a.m. the electricity was off and on all day. The neighbors all around us had no water since Saturday afternoon. We hadn’t had water until last night at 9:30. We had thought ours was either frozen or the pipes had broken underground. It turned out that the pipes had just been frozen.

Snow came in real handy, and we were glad that we had lots of that. I just carried in the snow and dumped it on my kitchen floor, so I could mop up the sticky jelly and syrup.

We also boiled snow for drinking water. They ran out of Typhoid serum but got some more in yesterday morning, so we got our Typhoid shots last night. (because of problems with the drinking water).

The Weather Bureau has set up in two different places on Elmendorf Air Force Base. One in a little building at the end of the runway for the briefers and another building for the forecasters.

They are still not able to do all the work because of broken equipment and not enough room.

So, Seattle has to do the high-altitude forecasting. Art was able to go to work yesterday,

Our church made it through the earthquake just fine. But there are houses a block away from it that were damaged.

This morning, the girls and I walked down to a little lake here and saw two houses that were destroyed.

There is one block in downtown Anchorage that dropped 30 feet below ground level. You just can’t believe what has happened unless you can see it with your own eyes.

There are cracks in the roads, and I mean lots of them. Just south of town, the Seward Highway, the road we took when we went fishing when you were here, about 5 miles out, has a 4-foot crack. This same road is closed and cannot be opened for 2 or 3 months.

One businessman in downtown Anchorage has a sign posted that reads: “Closed for business due to early breakup”.

There is still going to be more trouble when breakup (Spring) does come.

With ground giving away and buildings cracking and breaking up.

This was a horrible experience and I hope that we and no one else ever has to go through something like this again.

We figure we lost around $200 because of damages, which is nothing compared to people that lost everything.

By now, we hope you have received the other two letters we sent. You just couldn’t send anything out of here except for real emergencies. And they were advising everyone to send air mail letters, that they would go out every two hours and would be postmarked in Seattle.

You have heard a lot on TV and radio about what happened here in Alaska during the Good Friday earthquake, but I wanted to let you know what happened and how things are here at our house.”

Written by Mildred Eichelberger

Yours Free

Anchorage and Alaska Facts, History, and Pioneers

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