Interior Alaska had another 5.0 earthquake on Monday. Due to my incredibly full summer, I’m just now getting around to my own needs, so I was hauling and stacking firewood when the tremor passed underneath. I’m proud to say I actually felt this one.
When the shaking stopped, I wheeled over another load of wood to the woodshed, and found that the first row of stacked firewood now had a pronounced bow in the middle of the row. Since I live outside of any city limits, my wood pile is not subject to inspections by the city seismic engineers. I can build any type of woodshed I want, and stack it any way I please, without any governmental interference.
Now some people would claim that the bow in the stacked row of wood after a 5.0 earthquake just goes to show how we need seismic engineers inspecting our woodpiles before some sort of firewood tragedy happens. Of course, those people live in Anchorage, or locales further south.
It may be true that my stack of firewood would not pass the seismic engineers inspection. Each log is not tied to the other with structural ties; they just kind of lie there on top of each other, in a now, somewhat wavy wall of birch & spruce. The way I look at it, the wall may have a bit of a wave to it, but it survived a 5.0 shaker. How many wood burners in Minnesota or Iowa can say that?
So I made an attempt to push the wave back, then put up two more rows of stacked wood to cover, and theoretically support, the wavy row. I go into this new, wood burning season, with full knowledge and understanding, that if we get another 7.9 like the 2002 Denali Quake, I’ll be picking up and re-stacking some firewood.
Living on the edge.
October 22nd, 2014 at 3:53 AM
I was at Fred Meyer’s when the 2002 Denali quake hit and it was pandemonium.
October 22nd, 2014 at 6:11 AM
I bet it was. I was driving down University Ave in my blue ’66 Chevy truck. Let me tell you, that was an experience.