Thirteen and a half miles is a cake walk, a 20 minute drive on any day. If I leave home at the right time, I can sail through all but one stoplight on my way to work, but will catch half of them on the way home. It takes 45 minutes on a day with really bad roads-ice, blowing snow, things like that. On this day, it was a mix of pedal to the metal and inching through debris, downed power lines, detours, and go arounds that taxed my knowledge of roads, trails, creeks, bridges and my memory to the max. I knew my husband would be worried, but at least he was safe at work on the North Slope. We’d never really discussed in detail about what to do should we have some sort of disaster, but he did know I would get Joey and be at home. Somehow.
I turned the radio back on and found another AM station on the air:
“KENI 650, we’re live with updates on the quake that just occurred. The Alaska Tsunami Warning Center has issued an update, The center is advising residents to prepare for aftershocks following today's magnitude 8 plus, with some likely to be very strong. One large aftershock of 7.9 has already occurred……….” I hurriedly turned the dial back to 750 and listened with a sickening feeling to the list of damage already being reported: Parks and Glenn Highways impassable, with the Knik Arm bridges being down or gone. Overpasses collapsed, buildings in Anchorage down and some burning, port possibly taking heavy damage as well. Many fires, roads wiped out, panic spreading quickly, and casualties starting to be reported. All emergency systems functioning on generator power, with National Guard units already being called in for help. Residents were being urged to stay in their homes or where they were if safe, and if not, to head to the schools where the Red Cross was being mobilized to set up shelters.
I was pretty lucky that the leaning power poles and sagging or downed lines were on the south side of the arterial, otherwise I would have been forced into picking my way through connected subdivisions to the south. Most of the traffic was also inching along, everyone being fairly polite about it, except at one intersection-there, someone had bailed out and was waving traffic through on foot. Brave man, was all I could think as I braked and then did a California roll right on through. Several places required some skill to negotiate stretches of busted up or tilted pavement but luckily the rotting snow banks alongside the roadway presented no huge obstacle.
I made it to the main interchange with the Parks Highway relatively quickly. The two malls were a mess, vehicles had been smacked together, people were dazed and wandering around, lots of yelling and I heard the occasional popping of a firearm. I had seen plenty of fires in the residential neighborhoods on the way, but nothing had caught at the malls-a small wonder. Oh great, just what we need, idiots with firearms and no patience I thought. Slowing to take a good look at the Glennwood Bypass bridge, my heart sank. Fully half of it was completely off the support pillars and hanging by twisted bits of rebar, above the railroad tracks below. One unfortunate vehicle was hanging partway into the void, but the doors were open on the minivan and I couldn’t see anyone on foot. With the bypass being built on a compound angle to begin with, and the lower section-or north side gone, that left no way to get up that hill. As I watched, a couple cars turned off the Parks and were brought to a halt at the sight. Okay, then, Plan B it is, I thought to myself, right after one errand. I swung right into a mall parking lot and made my way to the pet store.
The young employees were frightened, and with the power out, the windows that remained had left the place a cavernous, dimly lit space that was rather spooky. All the other customers present had scrambled out and away, leaving the four youngsters at a loss as to what to do. Two were busy trying to take care of the miscellaneous birds, reptiles, and whatnot they kept for resale, and the other two were in a heated argument over whether to walk away or not. I just walked right in and helped them figure it out, first by selling me dog food with the cash I had on hand. Then, I told them to lock up their tills, and find all the wood boards, pallets, and any wooden sheeting they had and bring it forward to seal the windows and doors with. One young girl took it upon herself to load up as many critters as she could, along with bedding and feed and I was thinking that was a futile waste of energy, but her choice. In 15 minutes we had the place pretty well buttoned up and they thanked me and scattered to their vehicles and were gone. Ruing that I had forgotten to ask for help loading the dog food, I muscled the bags on top of the hay, all eight of them, and used another cargo strap to ratchet them down firmly.
Leaving, I was dismayed to see that the anchor grocery store had closed up and had stationed people in front of the doors. That explained the nearly empty parking lot, but I didn't think they'd be able to stave off a huge rush, sure to come. Of course, with the light poles cockeyed, busted pavement everywhere, and some sort of water leak along side the building, I didn't think they'd be opening any time soon anyway.
Stopping at the highway, I had to wait a minute or two for traffic to clear as folks were having to detour around a downed pole that had fallen across three lanes. It was creating a bottleneck there, but luckily I found a small break in traffic and stomped on the accelerator, making a left onto the Parks Highway southbound. With some very careful maneuvering, I was able to get to the top of the hill and make a right onto the road that lead to Glennwood, and began cautiously picking my way along, as a portion of the roadway had slumped or sloughed off on the left. I was not the only person to have figured this out, as I was in line behind a couple other pickups. In a caravan of sorts, we made it to the left over the railroad tracks. Looking down them, I could only think it was going to be a good long time before the railroad was functioning again-they were warped and twisted and a couple had even popped loose and were sticking up at odd angles.
Proceeding into the subdivision, the roadway surface was heaved and cracked, all sorts of angles but nothing so big a person couldn’t manage to drive over or around them. I was third in line behind a Dodge pickup when we all were forced to stop at the creek side bridge-which looked impassable. We all got out to take a look, and to discuss how to get across the once placid, low creek which was now muddied and running higher than normal. As I watched the waters swirl and tumble it occurred to me that debris wouldn’t be far behind and I mentioned this to the other three drivers. The second truck was a high job with four wheel drive and a winch on the front. The 30 something year old driver was a reedy, high energy type and he was anxious to give it go if the first truck would back out of his way. He promised to wait on the other side and we’d use his winch on our rigs if we got stuck. I pointed out that I had noticed that the creek bed was very soft before, and perhaps the downstream side would be better as it was slightly wider with lower banks. The first guy had no idea, he was just used to taking the road as a shortcut when traffic was bad and had never paid attention. The driver of the second rig had been over the creek on an ATV and agreed with me, so we got out of his way so he could position for a run across. Holding my breath, I watched as he dropped the truck into 4 low, popped the clutch and began down over the brushy bank. With water and ice chunks spraying off on both sides he wallowed across like a tank without stopping, barely getting his running boards wet in the process. He pulled out the other side and stopped on the punky snow, then turned around to point the truck towards the new crossing. I looked back at the first rig and saw a tricked out fancy truck with all the bling and a nervous, scared mid 20s driver to manage the crossing. I piped up that I would go next since I had four wheel drive and plenty of pulling power to spare. With a nod, I jumped back into the truck, pushing the dog over out of my way. I managed to back up without smacking into anything, then saw that my longer wheelbase was going to be an issue when the wheels dropped into the creek bed itself-I ran a pretty good chance of getting hung up there if I slowed down the slightest. I rolled down the window and shouted to the driver across the creek to get the heck out of the way, found the 4 wheel drive, popped it into low range, and waited for space on the other side.
With my mental toes and fingers crossed, I revved up the engine and let off the brakes, and the truck surged forward into the creek. My stomach dropped as the front end did and then the back end followed, scrambling to find traction. I eased off the throttle a tad, felt the rear tires bite again, and powered on. I aimed for a spot just to the side of the first driver and it was a good thing I did. The water splashed up onto the bank had made it very slick and I darned near got stuck getting out when I lost traction on the rear end coming out. A little measured throttle work and I was out, on the other side, and plowing to a stop. Letting go of the steering wheel took a little doing, I needed to catch my breath anyway. I hopped out of the truck and the first guy and I had a quick discussion on how to get the other truck over without it getting stuck. Finally we decided the best thing to do would be to run out the winch first, and have the guy attach it to the tow hooks in front. While this was done, I got my delivery truck out of the way and facing towards the hill beyond, and got out to watch.
Sure enough, the baby truck wallowed down into the creek and promptly lost traction. The driver, losing his cool, was stomping on the accelerator like crazy, getting nowhere. With some yelling, we were able to get him to leave off that, and the winch was engaged. Slowly, it came across and started up the bank, only to bog down on the bank in the now slushy, icy snow. With that, I ran back to my truck and dug out the 25 foot chain in the tool box below the bed. I made a loop around the lift bed bar, and ran it out to the bumper of the other truck. The driver popped around, and finally introduced himself as Dave. With a quick introduction, I told him I would pull his truck, dragging the stuck one along with us. Given the angles involved, I knew I would have to head to the left, and told him to expect me to slide all over everywhere, but to keep at it on a measured count. We lashed the far end to his welded on bumper hitch and had a plan. With only time for a glance and a “good doggie” to Dooms, I hopped in and waited for the signal.
A full three minutes and a quarter acre later, we managed to get the truck unstuck and onto firm ground again. It was the worst attempt at towing I had ever been involved with, with my truck going this way and that, rear end sliding around, and tires smoking on half frozen ground to boot. We all tumbled out of our rigs with some relief and after winding up the winch and getting my chain back into the box, we were ready to tackle the hill. Looking up, my heart sank again.
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