Quakes are nothing new in area

Among Other Things

By Paul Fugleberg

The swarm of minor earthquakes that have apparently centered around Big Arm are nothing new to this area. In 1969, 1971 and into '72 similar swarms were reported. Sharpest of those was a 4.7 temblor that centered in the Dayton-Proctor area. Some windows in the Dayton school were broken and the big school bell was knocked from its mount. Some merchandise was knocked from shelves as far south as Polson.

A memorable coincidence occurred just after that particular quake. John Hull, who worked part-time for us at the Ronan Pioneer, was en route to Polson when the quake struck and hadn't noticed it as he drove. In the Flathead Courier office, though, it had caused the plate glass window to flex in and out and was strong enough to rock one of the Linotype machines.

We were still chattering like a bunch of monkeys when John came in the back door and wondered what was going on. As he stood by my desk, I described the quake to him. Just as I started to motion with my hands the movement of the windows, a sharp aftershock struck.

"That's enough," John said. "Don't tell me any more!"

Following a Nov. 9, 1972, jolt that knocked some books off Dayton school desks, Mother Nature seemed to declare a moratorium on detectable seismic activity for a number of years.

Quakes in the Challis and Mackey, Idaho, areas on Oct. 28, 1983, were felt here as was a 4.6 earthquake centered near Lethbridge, Alta. And there have been occasional minor quakes since.

The Aug. 6, 1914, Flathead Courier reported a minor earthquake in the Flathead Lake area. A month later there was a series of aftershocks in the Somers and Bigfork areas.

The Flathead and Mission valleys felt reverberations of the big Manhattan-Willow Creek-Three Forks quake in the summer of 1925.

Ten years later the disastrous series of earthquakes that hit Helena were noted here, too. There was speculation that the quake might have been responsible for opening a chasm on the face of the Garden Wall of the Mission Range east of St. Ignatius. Mel Meuli's water tank in the Dayton area was cracked by the quakes and drained and a water main on Third Street in Polson was broken.

Of course the massive Madison River Canyon 7.3 quake in August 1959 was felt throughout the Mission Valley.

And 1964 was a seismically active year locally, starting in February, when a couple early morning temblors jarred folks awake. It was the start of a prolonged series of minor but noticeable shakes. By the next April, more than 50 confirmed small temblors felt in this area were confirmed.

The local tremors pale in comparison to what Earl Jenson of Polson experienced when living in Anchorage, Alaska, when the catastrophic Good Friday 9.2 magnitude quake struck that area in 1964. Afterwards, Earl wrote the Courier describing the situation.

He said he'd just gone to the fridge for a bottle of ketchup to use with his supper when the quake shook his basement home in Anchorage.

He wrote, "I could tell right away this was no ordinary quake as it quickly picked up intensity … I went into the bedroom and watched from a window. The trees across the street were shaking and whipping back and forth. It got so bad that I couldn't stand up and sat it out on the edge of the bed.

"When the worst was over, I went back through the basement and into the garage. The door between the living quarters and the outside door both had come open during the quake, so I closed them right away to hold in any heat should my oil lines be broken.

"Fuel oil had sloshed out of half-filled barrels through filter caps. Also, water in the toilet bowl had sloshed out, leaving about 20 percent left in the bowl. All this time, while I was in the garage and checking barrels, the whole basement was still rolling and lurching. It was like walking aboard a ship or on a moving train.

"My supper had landed on the floor, one piece of hamburger landed on the back of a broken plate. I picked it up and got another plate from the cupboard, and with more potatoes I went ahead and ate while supper was still warm."

Jenson's home escaped major damage although the TV and table it was on fell over and an antique glass shade lamp broke.

We no doubt can expect occasional minor quakes — hopefully no big 'uns. After all, Montana is the fourth most seismically active state in the U.S.