Alaska earthquake renews focus on emergency readiness

A magnitude 7.1 earthquake in Alaska's mostpopulous region on Sunday has renewed focus on the U.S. state's readiness todeal with a natural disaster.

And it's not just earthquakes that pose a danger across the vaststate but also wildfires, floods, landslides and even volcanos.

Robert Forgit, Alaska area manager for the Federal EmergencyManagement Agency, said he thinks Alaskans are resilient and perhapsmore used to quakes and flooding.

The state also does a good job of working with communities onemergency plans, he said.

Jeremy Zidek, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Militaryand Veterans Affairs, said it's hard to say how prepared residentsare.

Many people hunt and fish and have a freezer full of meat, andthere are people who live near the road system but are remote enoughthat they tend to stock up more on food, he said.

The state recommends having at least seven days of supplies onhand and a family plan in case of emergencies.

In the case of major damage to the Port of Anchorage, throughwhich an estimated 90 per cent of commodities for most Alaskansenter the state, there would be a cascading effect, Zidek said.

It would take time to set up alternate routes, such as use ofother ports, having things flown in or trucking supplies from theAlaska Highway, which runs from Canada.

An active seismic zone

In 2012, then-Gov. Sean Parnell's administration proposedstockpiling food around the state's two largest cities, which alsohave military bases, in case the state's 735,000 residents were cutoff from supply lines.

But when Gov. Bill Walker took office and asked departments totighten belts as the state dealt with a multibillion-dollar budgetdeficit, the stockpiling idea was tossed, Zidek said. The state hasother food resources it can tap, including local food banks andpartnerships with federal agencies and non-governmental agencies,like the Red Cross, he said.

"I think Alaskans are more prepared to deal with naturaldisasters than other communities, say in the Lower 48, because we'rea resilient people anyway. This is the Last Frontier," said Forgit.

Alaskans, living along an active seismic zone, also are a bitmore used to earth-shaking and flooding along rivers like the Yukonand Kuskokwim, he said.

In places like the Kenai Peninsula, where four houses weredestroyed following the early Sunday morning earthquake, authoritiesput as much time as they can into stressing readiness, said ScottWalden, emergency management director for the Kenai PeninsulaBorough.

A group of about 150 residents in the region are trained as partof a Citizens Corps to help provide basic fire or first aid responseas a stopgap if emergency services are not able to respondimmediately. Members of the corps opened the shelter after the quakeuntil the Red Cross arrived, he said.

It's neighbours helping neighbours, Walden said. "Not to takethe place of emergency responders but to be able to provide somesemblance of organization and comfort until the responders can getthere," he said.

In 2013, an ice jam along the Yukon River flooded the smallcommunity of Galena in Alaska's Interior. Steve Erickson said he'slived in Galena for 25 years and thought he knew what flooding was.

But he had never experienced something like that before -- "fast andfurious."

He and his wife have rebuilt their home on high pilings. They'realso are more vigilant around break-up in the spring.

Preparationsinclude making sure there's enough bottled water and food in thehouse for a week or so, he said.

"You can just have a bunch of canned food and you're good togo," he said.