Monday, August 17, 2020

Earthquake Lake

This morning was a major cleaning day for me while John spent time making arrangements to get our Oasis pump replaced so we can again have hot water on demand.

This afternoon we took a driving tour to check out RV parks for this weekend and ended up driving through the Earthquake Lake Geologic Area.


On this day in 1959 a 7.5 earthquake, with its epicenter in Hebgen Lake, set off a massive landslide that sent 80 million tons of rock into the Madison River closing off the canyon and forming Earthquake Lake.  People camping in the canyon were awaken in the middle of the night by the explosive noise and high winds caused by the slide.  Massive boulder rained down and the road was broken. Over 300 people we caught in the mayhem, 28 lives were lost. Up stream from the slide, Hebgen Lake formed  massive waves that swept over the dam and up onto the shore line taking out lodges and cabins. One side of the lake sank 19 feet. Today you can see cabins on dry land that floated away in the floods and the scar from the landslide is most evident.  Engineers created a spillway to ease the pressure on the slide so that Earthquake Lake would not break through the rocks.

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