Most people know Valdez as the area of a devastating oil spill many decades ago. Fortunately, that has been nicely cleaned up. Less well known is that it was the site of a devastating earthquake on Good Friday in 1964. The quake was magnitude 9.2, making it the second most powerful earthquake ever recorded. I've personally been in a Richter 7.0 earthquake and that was plenty scary, but it only lasted about 30 seconds. The Valdez quake went on and on for almost five minutes and would have been about 100 times worse than the earthquake I experienced as the Richter scale is logarithmic.
The town of Valdez was all but completely destroyed by the earthquake and its aftermath (including several huge tsunamis), and dozens of people died. When it was later discovered that the town was built on a geologically unstable area, the Old Town was condemned, and Valdez was completely rebuilt 4 miles west of its original site.
(Old Valdez Townsite)
There's not much left to see in Old Valdez. Nature has largely taken over. There are a few markers where buildings once stood, and pieces of concrete and some foundations persist. But largely it is reverting back to nature.
(lots of dead salmon beside the stream)
(Live salmon migrating upstream)
There was a small creek flowing through Old Townsite and when we visited in August the salmon were running upstream dying after they had spawned. It is an impressive thing to see. Hopefully the following videoclip gives you an idea of this phenomenon.
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