Every location had something natural that can cause problems. Midwest tornadoes, Gulf Coast Hurricanes, flooding most places, blizzards in the Northeast, etc., etc. Alaska is no different. We have volcanoes, earthquakes and when living on the coast, the possibility of tsunamis.
A couple of months ago, we had some friends who had just moved here from Oklahoma over to watch the World Series. Of course with all of us being relatively new to the state, we were talking about the wildlife predators – bears, eagles, wolves, etc., along with earthquakes as we had just had a 4.? the day before. One of the kids finally asked if there was anything else to be concerned about which started the volcano conversation. These aren’t something the typical midwesterner normally has to deal with.
We have several active volcanoes in Alaska. On our house-hunting trip this year we spent some time on the Homer Spit. From this location we could see Mount Augustine spitting ash and steam. The sky was clear and blue with minimal winds and the column of steam was going straight up in the air. It was picture perfect – what many imagine an active volcano should look like. While Anchorage is fairly distant from any active volcanoes and flowing lava, there is a real chance we could have problems with ash falls. Ash is one of those things you don’t go outside in. It is difficult to breath and cars don’t run for long. We aren’t supposed to run any kind of exhaust fans in an ash fall as all that does is bring the ash in the house somewhere else. I’ll bet there’s a “no electronics” usage rule too which would really put a damper on things if we couldn’t go outside.
Earthquakes are a different story. There is a very interesting site to check out called Recent Earthquakes and it is amazing how many earthquakes Alaska has each day. In fact, I have now been in 2 earthquakes registering over 4 magnitude. The first one I was in an elevator and didn’t feel a thing and the second one was Thursday night. I had just started the dishwasher and was washing up the few dishes that didn’t fit and Robert said, “We’re having an earthquake.” Me being the contentious person I am said, “No we aren’t.” He happened to be sitting in front of the desk resting his arm on the granite and the granite started to move North to South and he wasn’t. Once again, I missed it. The running water and working dishwasher were enough to mask the movement of the house. It was over in about 10 seconds. Then I had to check the earthquake site to see if he was kidding. :) Squirt doesn’t seem to notice. He has either felt enough not to be worried about it or Mom and Dad haven’t been concerned so he doesn’t need to be either.
However, this does explain why our pictures are always crooked.
On a different note – one of which I KNOW you are anxiously awaiting news – Momma and baby moose seem to have moved into the neighborhood. We have seen them three nights in a row and still don’t have the perfect moose picture!
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