, Alaska, USA
1964 - 21 DEAD, 83 MISSING IN FRIDAY'S EARTHQUAKE. PROPERTY DAMAGE ESTIMATE AT OVER $350-MILLION.

Anchorage, Alaska (AP) - As Alaskans toiled to dig out from the rubble of Friday's great earthquake, Civil Defense officials listed new casualty figures today of 21 known dead and 83 missing and presumed.

Fifty-five were reported to have been injured.

This means if those presumed dead - most were washed to sea by tidal waves following the quake - are indeed dead the toll will be more than 100.

Before this morning's report, an estimated 70 had been listed as dead or presumed so.

Gov. WILLIAM A. EGAN made a new damage estimate Sunday night of $350 million for this far north state, where industry in several south-central coastal towns was virtually obliterated.

Civil Defense officials gave this breakdown on casualties:

Anchorage, with a metropolitan population of 100,000 and the state's largest city, 8 dead and 2 presumed dead, 50 injured.
Kodiak, 7 dead, 14 presumed dead, 2 injured.
Valdez, 1 dead, 30 presumed dead, 2 injured.
Seward, 2 dead, 20 presumed dead, 2 injured.
Whittier, 1 dead, 12 presumed dead, 1 injured.
Cordova, 1 dead, 5 presumed dead, injured unknown.
Port Ashton, 1 dead, 5 presumed dead, injured unknown.

A stunned population began to realize the economic ruin carried by the quake. In some communities, industry was as much as 95 per cent wiped out.

"It might take a year and a half to two years to rebuild," said BRUCE WOODFORD of smashed Valdez, "but we'll make it."

EGAN said his estimate of property damage was conservative. Other unofficial estimates were higher.

EGAN had increased the figure after visiting Valdez, his home town.

Information from many of the heavy hit areas was sketchy at best. In Kodiak, where a tidal wave washed out the waterfront, one report said martial law had been proclaimed. Police refused to confirm or deny the report.

EDWARD A. McDERMOTT, President Johnson's personal representative on the scene, was flying back to Washington today to recommend special relief legislation.

The President already has declared the 49th state a major disaster area. McDERMOTT said it was obvious the full disaster relief program permitted under present law would not be enough.
At best, he said, it would take two to four months to get Alaskan economy into any workable shape.

Alaska Senators ERNEST GRUENING and E. L. (BOB) BARTLETT, also Washington-bound, indicated they would press for an immediate aid grant in Congress.

Typically, Seward, 60 miles south of Anchorage, had only two known dead, but its business was 95 percent destroyed and few of its men still had jobs.

The Alaskan Railroad, vital route from Seward to the interior, was a jumble of wrecked cars and twisted rails. A mile-long waterfront area collapsed into the sea.

All along the ring of the Gulf of Alaska where the great quake struck in fury at 5:36 p.m. Friday it was a similar story of low casualties but mighty ruin.

Anchorage, the metropolis of the state with an area population of 100,000, counted 12 dead. Its business district and its best residential section is were tottering heaps of awesome wreckage.

Kodiak Island enumerated 12 dead. Its fishing fleet and canning plants were wrecked.
One hundred and five miles southeast of Anchorage, reports from the small town of Valdez, said many of the 32 dead were on a dock that collapsed when hit by a huge sea wave.

The sea waves also worked terrible and deadly destination thousands of miles away, killing at least 16 persons in California and Oregon. Worst of these sufferers was Crescent City, Calif., more than 2,000 miles from the quake's epicenter. There 11 persons died and 15 were still missing.

Anchorage, center of the Alaskan recovery effort, went soberly about its business, flinching at successive after-shocks.

One shake, felt strongly in Anchorage Easter evening, was rated at 7.3 on the Richter scale of energy by the University of Washington at Seattle 1,500 miles away. University scientists said it was a separate quake, in the Aleutian trench 600 miles northwest of Friday's epicenter, but Anchorage felt it with jittery apprehension.

An earlier mid-afternoon shock led to a civil defense warning of a new tidal wave headed for Seward. It was called off quickly, but people who had lived through Friday evening's terror fled to high ground.

The Friday evening quake was rated by experts at 8.2 to 8.7 on the Richter scale. This scale, measuring the release of energy, has never before rated a quake higher than 8.6 and then only rarely and in unpopulated places.

Anchorage wholesale grocers estimated they had about a 30-day stock of essential foods on hand - mostly in wrecked warehouses, but still usable.

Electric current was being restored slowly. Many homes and buildings were without light, heat or power.

Drinking water had to be boiled or melted from snow. Mass typhoid inoculations were arranged.
Police, soldiers and National guardsmen, patrolling downtown Anchorage, reported no cases of attempted looting.

Guardsmen, patrolling downtown's teetering four-ton slabs of the modernistic five-story J. C. Penny store and other dangerous ruins. Dynamiting was considered and rejected.

A civil defense official said, "It is still possible some victims are in the rubble. We might not get to some for quite a while."

32 KILLED AT VALDEZ AS "IF BOTTOM DROPPED OUT"
Valdez, Alaska (AP) - "It was as though the bottom had dropped out of the ocean."

A steamship company representative thus described the violent earthquake and seismic waves that flattened and charred this seaport town and killed a reported 32 persons

The community of 1,000 on the Gulf of Alaska 150 miles southeast of Anchorage took one of the worst beatings from Friday night's violent shock.

Mayor BRUCE WOODFORD said it could be several months before residents - evacuated to higher ground - can return to their homes.

Many of the dead were working or standing on the city's dock which collapsed with a roar. The freighter Chena, being unloaded at the dock, was tossed around by the wild wave action.
"The water went down and then up," said steamship agent JOHN KELSEY. "The ship hit bottom twice."

Valdez Bay is 35 feet deep at dockside but the incoming tidal action covered the wharf and lifted the Chena above the normal shore level. Residents said the flip-flopping ship could be seen on the rise above housetops which normally obscure the bay.

A longshoreman aboard the Chena, JIM AUBERT, said the ship seemed to rise about 30.
The quake and wave also set five oil tanks on fire and damage, by official estimates, 90 percent of the towns buildings. Black smoke still curled from burning oil tanks.
Mayor WOODFORD said property loss would total at least $20 million.

"We are down on one knee," the mayor said, "but we're going to get back up."

Only two bodies had been recovered but WOODFORD said 30 others were "surely dead." Included were five children who were watching the ship being unloaded.

Valdez, a salmon fishing and seaport community, was virtually deserted with surviving residents encamped at Gulkana, 117 highway miles to the north. The town was evacuated Saturday night except for security patrols. Cleanup crews moved in during the day Sunday.
Residents said the town was hit by three tidal surges, the worst around midnight. "I was standing in water to about my knees," said ship agent KELSEY, "and it suddenly rose to chest height."

The waterfront was relatively crowded with longshoremen and residents watching the ship unloading.

INCOMPLETE LIST OF DEAD TO DATE.

Seattle (AP) - Here is an incomplete list of dead and missing in the Alaska earthquake and tidal waves that raced down the Pacific Ocean. Hometowns are from cities listed unless otherwise indicated.

Alaska
Anchorage
CLAYTON BAKER.
MRS. VIRGIL E. KNIGHT.
MARY LOUISE RUSTIGAN.
LEE STYER, 19.
WILLIAM TAYLOR, 45.
J. J. MARTINEZ, address unknown.
Seward.
EMIL ELBE.
ALVA WISDOM.

Valdez.
PAUL GREGORIOFF.
HOWARD KRAIGER.
ROBERT HARRISON.
JAMES GROWDEN.
GROWDEN son, about 3.
GROWDEN son, about 4.
RICHARD ROBINSON.
REV. L. D. CARRIKER.
PHIL WHEELER.
GEORGE JOSLYN.
ROSS McCOY.
DENNIS CUNNINGHAM, 15.
STANLEY KNUTSEN, 14.
JERRY ZOOK.
BUD WILLIAMS.
DUTCH SCHMIDT.
BOB KULSTAD.
MRS. BOB KULSTAD.
DON O'LEANY.
DON BODIE.
DOUG GRANGER.
DAN MULLER.
FREDDIE BROWN.
SMOKEY STUART.
MRS. SMOKEY STUART.
Three STUART Children.
HARRY HENDERSON.
JACK VAN BUSKIRK.
GEORGE TABASCO.
Unidentified.

Whittier.
"BABY GIRL" WARE, 2 1/ 2 months.

Oregon.
Depoe Bay.
RICKY McKENZIE, 6, Tacoma, Wash.
LOUIE McKENZIE, 8, Tacoma.
BOBBY McKENZIE, 7, Tacoma.
TAMMY McKENZIE, 3, Tacoma.

Seaside.
MISS MARY EVA DEIS, 50, Seaside, heart attack.

California.
Crescent City.
WILLIAM EUGENE WRIGHT, 10 months.
BONITA WRIGHT, 3.
JOAN FIELDS, 25.
JAMES PARK, 60.
ADOLPH ARRIGONI, 70.
LaVELLE HILLSBERRY, 35.
WILLIAM CLAWSON, 52.
MRS. CLAWSON, 51.
EARL EDWARDS, 55.
MRS. EDWARDS.
OREN MAGRUDER, heart attack.

Bolinas Bay.
ISAAC T. DIRKSON, 34, Sonoma, Calif.

Klamath.
Air Force SGT. DONALD McCLURE, 33, Klamath and Akron, Ohio.

The Daily Sentinel
Sitka, Alaska
March 30, 1964

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