The house was built in 1984
We needed an evaluation of the soils under the house before making a repair plan.
Hello
My name is Sara and I live in Anchorage, Alaska. On November 30, 2018, Anchorage experienced a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. Our home foundation was extensively damaged. We demolished the house and rebuilt on the same site. It took three years, seven months, and four days from the earthquake until we paid the last contractor bill.
No single source helped with disaster recovery. Every agency and organization had its own web site. I stumbled through the World Wide Web and the local newspaper looking for information. That was an incredibly frustrating process.
I recently retired from a 33-year career as an engineer. My retirement project is to help other disaster survivors.
This website is a work in progress. I appreciate feedback on topics, corrections, and insights that would benefit other survivors.
My Story
I want to share my story to help other survivors understand what it is like to go through the disaster recovery process. It is long. You may decide to stop reading because it is too much to imagine your recovery is going to take as long as ours or you are finding too much detail. I completely understand. I did not want to write my story because it was so painful to revisit everything.
My Background
I have Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in Engineering degrees. I am a Licensed Professional Civil Engineer. I recently retired from a 33-year career that included 7 years as a Civil Engineer in the Air Force and 24 years in the oil industry. Most of my career was in facility operations and maintenance. I have a lot of experience dealing with structures, contractors, and regulations. Even with this background, I still had a very hard time working through the process.
November 30, 2018, Magnitude 7.1 Earthquake
My husband was home when the ground started shaking. He heard the house crack. The attached garage sank and pulled partially away from the house. We immediately had cracks big enough to put a hand through and smaller cracks throughout the house. The downstairs bathtub detached from the tile and wall. I figured we were going to have some garage work and wondered if we would hit our earthquake deductible of $43,000.
December 2018. Filed a claim with our homeowners insurance.
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The following week the company sent a team to Alaska. The adjustor did a preliminary walk through and gave us an estimate of $58,000 to fix the garage floor and the driveway and to repair the cracks inside the house. He stated this estimate was just for cosmetics, but we needed an engineer to evaluate the structure.
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We had a few personal items break and immediately received a direct deposit to our banking account.
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Insurance said we needed to develop an estimate for the repairs because they did not have the ability to do it in Alaska. A friend who runs an interior design and remodeling business gave us the name of a home remodeling contractor to help us out. He was a lifesaver!
January 2019. Had an inspection by insurance engineers.
An insurance engineer from the East Coast performed an inspection. He felt our house was safe to live in. This determination was a real blessing because we did not have to find long-term temporary housing while we muddled through the claims process.
February 2019. Filed a claim with FEMA.
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FEMA denied the claim because we had insurance.
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We applied for a loan with the Small Business Administration (SBA). The SBA process was very fast, and we received authorization for a $43,000 loan to cover our deductible. We had 90 days to accept it. We turned it down because we did not know when the work would begin. With an SBA loan, you must immediately start paying it back.
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We received the insurance structural engineer report. It stated we needed a soils study for ground stability before a plan could be developed to raise the garage and repair the house.
March to April 2019. Hired a geotechnical engineering firm.
The company drilled to obtain soil samples from two locations. The report said we were on 20+ feet of wet and silty soil. This means that the soils do not have the required strength to support a building.
April to July 2019. Started developing a repair estimate.
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We worked with the home remodeling contractor to develop a repair estimate. This effort included obtaining estimates from an excavation firm and a firm that installed piles under houses to lift and relevel them.
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The pile firm said it would not lift our house without an engineered lift plan. Local firms would not call back because they were so busy. Finally, an architect I know gave me the name of an engineer who was too busy but gave me the name of another firm.
August to September 2019. Received a house lift plan from an engineering firm.
The engineering firm had the house and garage surveyed for elevations. The main house tilted about 1 ½ inches, and the garage had sunk 8 inches from the front to the back and was continuing to sink. The engineering report recommended installing piles around the perimeter of the house and garage to return it to level and provide stability.
One Year Later
November 2019. Watched house continue to crack apart.
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As the garage continued to settle, it was pulling on the entire house structure. We could see cracks growing day to day. Initially most of the cracks were near where the garage was attached. They were now progressing throughout the entire house.
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In the kitchen we could feel the unevenness of the floor. A door that never used to shut now shut, but several others would not shut. The front door required a big shove to open and shut. When it snowed, we had snow coming in under the door. The upstairs guest bath started leaking into the downstairs bath with the broken tub. This meant our teenage son was sharing a shower with us.
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On the upside, the winter snow melt in the garage flowed straight out onto the driveway.
January 2020. Received excavation company estimate.
Dirt work was required before the piles could be installed. Every single estimate we needed was taking several months to obtain. The delays were incredibly frustrating. Many other people were experiencing the same challenges.
February 2020. Received the piling contractor estimates.
We provided the estimates to our remodeling contractor.
March 2020. Received final estimate from remodeling contractor.
We submitted this to our insurance company.
COVID arrived and everything slowed down.
May 2020. Required by insurance company to work with a new, second estimate.
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The insurance company came back with questions about code requirements and said a second estimate was required and would be covered by the company. A local firm that specialized in damage assessment was hired to come and inspect. I was furious! In 2019 the insurance company had said there was no one available so we had to create the estimate ourselves, and now they had someone.
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Our insurance adjustor did provide some guidance. Anything we disagreed with would require a picture, code reference, or engineering documents to show why we disagreed. Because the claim was so large, it was above his approval level. Consequently, there was a lot more scrutiny of the estimate.
June 2020. Resubmitted our revised repair estimate to insurance company.
We settled at 98% of the Replacement Cost Value and received additional money for other property. Now it was time to build a new home. We decided to rebuild because it was going to cost just as much to repair the existing home. We did not want to abandon it because that would have increased our financial loss.
July 2020. Got started on a new house.
We thought the hard part was over. We were wrong. Developers who did entire neighborhoods were not interested in our project because it was a custom build. Finally, we found a builder and signed a contract.
September 2020. Demolished our house and moved into a rental.
I will not go into all the details of building a new house, but I will never build a house again. The COVID-induced housing boom, labor shortages, and supply chain interruptions made it worse than the typical home build. We also had a specially designed foundation with piles because of the weak soils. That was not covered by insurance.
Two Years Later
November 2020. Living In a rental and no construction started.
The builder was delayed in getting permits due to some minor issues with the design and a COVID outbreak in the municipal permitting department.
October 2021. Moved into the new home.
When we finally moved in, we did not have the joyous new home feeling. We did not want a new house. We were angry about everything. It was still a huge financial hit. Insurance will never keep you whole on a loss of this size.
Three Years Later
December 2021. Experienced warranty issues and it was cold outside!
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Our house was not heating properly. We were running electric heaters to keep rooms above 60 degrees. The problem was resolved after three visits from the heating contractor. It was the carpenter’s fault. They covered some of the air intakes.
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I was so upset; I was about ready to sell the house. The anger was the culmination of three years of dealing with the earthquake aftermath.
July 2022. Paid the last bills.
We finished the driveway, decks, and landscaping, and we spent the rest of the summer watching grass grow.
Today
The house is beautiful and modern. We built it so that we can age in place with all essentials on the first level. Financially we are still in a good position. We know we are blessed because so many people do not fare as well as we did after a natural disaster.
And I still get angry sometimes.