Cooper Landing News

Photo: Mona Painter/Turnagain Times The Kenai River Bridge collapsed near Mile 48 on the Sterling Highway after the March 27,1964 earthquake. Children were ferried to school in Jack Coppock’s boat until a temporary Bailey bridge was opened for use April 10. A new bridge was constructed a year later.

By Mona Painter
Turnagain Times Cooper Landing Correspondent

45th anniversary of 1964 quake
Anyone who was here on March 27, 1964 has a story to tell about the most powerful earthquake in North American history. I am one of those people. I was with my children and friends in my home, which was near the Kenai River Bridge at the outlet of Kenai River when the shaking started. As the ground rose and fall, trees bent over, the house parted company with the foundation and the cinder block chimney pieces began falling on the floor. I thought it was the end of the world and I was not ready to go. Eventually we all got out and made it to the highway to see the bridge, laying in pieces on the riverbed. The river was running backwards into the lake and giant whirlpools were swirling along the edges. The water was a blackish-gray. Lake ice some three feet thick was broken into huge pieces that eventually formed a dam against the bridge pieces and had to be blasted to prevent flooding.
Our house was eventually repaired and within a couple of weeks we could drive across the temporary Bailey bridge. Cracks in the highway were filled. One crack we measured was 15 feet deep.
The Department of the interior’s Geological Survey Professional Paper 543-A “Slide-Induced Waves, Seiching And Ground Fracturing Caused by the Earthquake Of March 27, 1964 At Kenai Lake, Alaska” explains why we saw the river running back into the lake and much more. Kenai Lake actually tilted during the earthquake. Many powerful waves carried pieces of ice into the woods. During the school picnic in May after the earthquake we found myriads of tiny snails on chunks of ice in the Quartz Creek area. In Paper 543-A’s conclusion we learned that had the lake level been ten feet higher, as it was six months later, the waves would’ve been greatly magnified and would have traveled 600 feet inland in the Lawing area. We also learned from the bathymetric map that the deepest part of Kenai Lake is 560 feet located above Porcupine Island.

APC takes up request for lease for horse business
The March 4 Cooper Landing Advisory Planning Commission meeting was attended by several members of the public interested in the primary agenda item regarding Alex Kime’s interest in leasing borough land for grazing and staging for his horses and trail riding business. This would include fencing and wall tents for a wrangler, feed, and tack. During the public testimony and reading of a number of letters from concerned property owners near the desired area to be leased it was clear that the majority did not support leasing that area which would have to be reclassified from Preservation to Commercial. Several reasons were given such as the grazing needs for 20 horses and the proximity to the anadromous Dena’ina Creek. Other places in Cooper Landing were suggested as possible sites, although there was not a consensus that there was such a thing as grazing land in the Cooper Landing area. Several comments were made favorable to Kime’s business, as many people have enjoyed his trail rides over the years including guests of Kenai Princess Wilderness Lodge. The next APC meeting is scheduled for April 1.