Picking up the Pieces

Alaskans always look forward to the big spring breakup, the time of the thaw that signals the end to hibernation and the beginning of the growing and fishing season. Along a corrugated street in downtown Anchorage last week a sign was posted on a store front: CLOSED DUE TO EARLY BREAKUP.

Such macabre humor was the exception in the wake of Alaska's Good Friday earthquake. More than 125 were dead or missing in the disaster, most of them in Alaska, the rest as a result of seismic sea waves that hit Oregon and California. The cost in property damage was, by latest estimate, more than $500 million. Downtown Anchorage was decimated; Seward, Kodiak, and scattered towns near the epicenter of the earthquake were all but wiped out.

All week long, red-eyed citizens wandered through their streets, looking for friends or loved ones, comparing experiences, recounting tales of tragedy and heroism. Soldiers with bayonets patrolled streets or baby-sat with begrimed children who had to be wheedled out of tears with jokes and C rations. Families fortunate enough to have heat, water or electricity opened their doors to the homeless. In the streets of the towns, volunteer workers joined military personnel in the unending job of picking up the pieces. In Seward a 30-ton fishing boat lay incongruously in a patch of woods several hundred yards from the shore. In the dockside railroad yard, a big switching engine rested on its side 200 ft. from the tracks.

Broke. The state capital, for all practical purposes, was temporarily shifted from Juneau to Anchorage's East Fifth Avenue, where, in a group of house trailers, Governor William Egan and his staff worked themselves to exhaustion to get Alaska back on its feet. They had a bleak time of it as they evaluated information feeding into their headquarters. Roughly 75% of Alaska's industrial output was crippled. Three thousand people no longer had jobs to go to. Home owners and small businessmen with mortgages were teetering on financial ruin. Banks, which hold about $300 million in deposits, feared a run of serious proportions. Said Anchorage City Councilman Sewell Faulkner: "I'd hate to think how many hundreds of people in Anchorage are bankrupt right now." In Seward, where 90% of the economy simply crumbled, City Manager William Harrison told newsmen: "Fellows, we're in a hell of a mess." He tried to read a news release; his voice broke, and he wept. "It's going to take a long time to recover," he said hoarsely.

Harrison might well have wept for all Alaska. For despite the fact that the state is twice the size of Texas (267,339 sq. mi.), its small population (250,000) and more than 60% of its business life were centered chiefly in those areas where the earthquake caused most of the destruction.

Unpleasant Obligation. Alaska's economy was not too secure in the first place. The last of a $28.5 million federal grant, bestowed at the time of statehood in 1959, was exhausted last year. The fishing industry was healthy, and oil exploration was beginning to pay off. But Alaska was still in great need of risk capital, and it was not forthcoming; a Wall Street syndicate last year was able to sell only $5.3 million of a $9 million bond issue. As a territory and as a state, moreover, Alaska's economy had long been largely dependent on big federal expenditures, and one day the tap would probably have to be turned off.

With business ripped to shreds and consumer spending sharply curtailed, Alaska's bankers met with federal of ficials in an attempt to find some temporary solutions to the financial crisis. The banks' loan capacity, never very great, was probably less than $100 million, not nearly enough to satisfy the demand. Some banks have already made construction loans. All of them, said Anchorage Banker Jacques Roth, have "the unpleasant obligation of deciding who will survive and who will go under."

Exodus? President Johnson requested a congressional appropriation of $50 million in emergency funds. But most Alaskans were convinced that the Congress will have to pass special legislation to make as much as $500 million available, preferably in outright grants rather than long-term loans. Governor Egan and other state officials hoped at the same time to kick off a $50 million reconstruction bond issue. But in any event, Alaskans agreed that they had better get the money soon or suffer a depression and a mass exodus of the populace. Said Anchorage Times Publisher Robert Atwood: "Uncle Sam can't let this place fold up. They need us."

Notwithstanding their fears, the Alaskans were also exuding confidence. To many, the earthquake was a blessing in disguise: an opportunity to rebuild the state, a chance to tear down the rest of the antiquated and otherwise unsuitable structures in the towns and to create modern cities that could blossom in a fresh and viable economy. "The history of areas like this," said Anchorage Banker Elmer Rasmuson, "is that they rebuild and get much better than they were before. I'm satisfied that we have the basic soundness on which to rebuild in a more modern fashion. This is not going to be done just because we're courageous Americans. It will be hard work, and I don't underestimate its difficulty. But it will be done."

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