We lived at 11th and L streets (in west Anchorage), in an area called South Addition, probably about ten blocks from Bootlegger’s Cove on Cook Inlet. It’s not a huge elevation gain from the inlet to where we lived.
The school, on the other hand, is at the top of Romig Hill in the Spenard subdivision, which is probably about 100 feet above sea level, but that’s a guess. At the bottom of Romig hill is Chester Creek, which likely would have funneled any seismic wave. Our home sat (still sits, actually) on the other side of that small valley from the school. Chester Creek was eventually dammed to create Westchester Lagoon. It’s a popular ice skating place in winter.
Thanks very much for your account, Chefguy! MrsRico’s first hubby was posted to Elmendorf AFB in 1967. She says Anchorage showed great damage then, three years post-quake. I remember our family driving through Crescent City in 1965 and the town was still wrecked. I also recall camping in 1969 in a redwood forest along the Navarro River a couple hundred miles south of Crescent City. Eight miles inland, trees bore signs thirty feet above the roadway, showing the tsunami’s high water mark. The signs are still there.
This famous New Yorker article starts with an account of a seismologists’ conference in Japan as Fukushima shook. At first shock, everyone checked the time. After 90 seconds of quaking, they all went outside. The longer, the stronger. " A minute-long quake is in the high sevens, a two-minute quake has entered the eights, and a three-minute quake is in the high eights. By four minutes, an earthquake has hit magnitude 9.0. Lesson: check your watch and be ready to scram.
Read the article and you’ll avoid moving to the Pacific Northwest.