A Community Working Together in the Wake of the Quake

January 21, 2019

“Our Hearts are Shaken, not Broken.” That is the phrase coined by Alaskans after a 7.0-magnitude earthquake surprised Anchorage and surrounding communities the morning of November 30, 2018. This is fitting because Alaskans are known for their fast, supportive measures to get the community back on its feet.

Cornerstone General Contractors (Cornerstone) wasted no time calling the Anchorage School District (ASD) after the initial quake. Not because of the need for more work, but to help guarantee continued education of our children within a safe environment. And Cornerstone knows that the best way to recover from a tragic event is to return to normalcy as soon as possible. In less than 24 hours after the major quake, Cornerstone crews were on site assessing the damage alongside ASD officials. 

Because 80% of the schools within the Anchorage Bowl suffered some level of damage—many of which were red tag buildings—classes were cancelled for an additional week, meaning crews needed to prioritize ASD buildings.

Cornerstone was assigned 18 different schools: 12 elementary, 3 middle, and 3 high school. According to Jonathan Hornak, Cornerstone’s Senior Project Manager, Spring Hill Elementary, Service High School, King Tech High School (formerly King Career Center [KCC]), and East High School were among the schools that took the biggest hit on Cornerstone’s list of assigned buildings. 

First assessing King Tech, Hornak knew the failed second-floor wall needed to come all the way down in order to properly repair it. “Immediately, we knew something on the wall wasn’t built right,” he explained. “It needed to be torn down.”

An interior wall in King Tech failed because reinforcement bar (rebar) wasn’t consistently installed within the whole height of the wall. “Rebar wasn’t installed all the way to the deck. Honestly, there was nothing above five feet to structurally reinforce the wall, which resulted in the collapse,” Hornak continued. 

After Cornerstone discovered the cause, ASD and their structural engineers investigated all similar walls within King Tech. Luckily, those walls were built correctly otherwise the school would have suffered more significant damage.

This area was marked with large red tags, noting the danger the loose bricks caused. Crews carefully worked through the rummage, clearing way for demolition in the first steps repairing the wall.

Walking through the empty school, an eerie story was told from the fallen ceiling tiles, abandoned backpacks, and chairs pushed away from desks. As you passed from classroom to classroom, the damage from the earthquake and surprise it caused on occupants was still evident from coffee stains, books on the floor, and debris left from fire suppression heads rattling up above. 

Matt Schmidt, one of Cornerstone’s Foreman, stood in awe looking at the level of movement from the building. “You can see the amount of horizontal movement of the ground from the sprinklers,” says Schmidt as he observes the ceiling tiles that barely survived the quake.

All of the schools on the list include ceiling tile repairs – hundreds, if not thousands of ceiling tiles—a lot of small repairs all over the schools. By staffing additional laborers and carpenters, Cornerstone was able to complete over half of the schools assigned to them within the allotted week. All of the schools were reopened on December 8th with the exception of minor areas within extremely impacted schools.

But for East High, it’s a different story. Another red tag was hung on the East High School Auditorium door. The acoustic “clouds” above the seating areas were designed to avoid shifting front to back, but the earthquake made them shift significantly left to right. Because of this, the panels smashed into the third row of sprinkler system, causing water to flood a portion of the room until the line was shut off. According to Tammie Smith-Scott, ASD’s Auditorium Manager, about eight inches of water covered the auditorium floor two days after the earthquake.

Even a month later, with negative temperatures outdoors, seismic repairs and upgrades to the East High School auditorium and pool were performed over ASD’s winter break. Although students came back from winter break last Monday, the school auditorium didn’t reopen until Thursday, January 10. Seating was reinstalled after crews cleaned up the flooding and replaced the sprinkler system.

No matter the repairs, the buildings will not be exactly the same as they were before the quake, but Alaskans don’t mind as this gives our buildings a little character.

Alaska is prone to earthquakes; the state experiences earthquakes every 12 minutes. Varied in magnitude, earthquakes aren’t typically felt unless over 4.0 magnitude of the Richter scale. Of course, location is a big factor, because with over 1.7 million square miles of land, proximity makes a huge difference.

The morning of Friday, November 30th, an earthquake only 25 miles deep was only eight miles from Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city. So, you can imagine the intensity of the quake.

The initial quake was destructive – and now, more than a month later, many jolts continue to leave residents shaken. According to the Washington Post:

“After a quake, swarms of aftershocks persist for weeks or even months. The bigger the main earthquake, the stronger and more frequent the aftershocks. The occurrence of aftershocks drops off exponentially as time progresses per a relationship known as Omori’s Law. By fitting an equation to the number of observed aftershocks, we can extrapolate trends into the future.”

Since then, over 6,000 aftershocks have been registered on the seismometer, including a large 5.0 New Year’s Eve and another shaker registering 5.4 on Sunday January 13th, 2019.

Master of Getting Schools Back on Their Feet

Cornerstone is no novus responding to schools damaged by massive earthquakes. AGC recognized Cornerstone with an Excellence in Construction Award for its work on the West/Romig IMC in the Fall of 2018.

On the morning of Sunday, January 23, 2016, a 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck Illiamna, Alaska. Even with over 160 miles of separation, the earthquake caused significant seismic damage to the West Anchorage High School and Romig Middle School shared Integrated Media Center (IMC). The library was deemed hazardous until further notice and needed correcting as soon as possible. After the earthquake damaged the library, the school district began investigating the damage, and ultimately designing the needed repairs.

Once selected to join the process, Cornerstone acted swiftly to add the needed structural upgrades to the IMC and nearby classrooms all while planning around the safety of students, faculty, and staff. In addition, some of the crew members who worked on this project are alumni to West, so being a part of improving this school meant a great deal to Cornerstone.

This project and the current work on ASD exemplify the success of acting swiftly to fix a dangerous situation in the public-school system. Due to Cornerstone’s sensitivity to the environment and surroundings, active collaboration with the designer and owner, and openness to the community, their experiences leave them proud to serve Alaska.

Let the aftershocks keep rolling—because we, Alaskans, are simply shaken, not broken.