Wells Earthquake

So I have been meaning to post about my trip to Wells for a week now but I have been busy and then I sprained my ankle and just haven't felt like it. I sprained my ankle Tuesday night and here it is Friday and I still can't put any weight on it. I've sprained my ankle before, it's been at least eight years but I don't remember it being such a pain. I must just be getting old, used to be that I would be walking on a sprained ankle in a day if that. Now here I am three days later still lay'n around. The good thing about this is now I don't have to go out of town next week for work.

Anyway, last week I was sent out to Wells, Nevada to see the damage. If the same earthquake happened in rural Utah, the damage would be very much the same. The town of Wells is a hole and it was very difficult to see what damage happened because of the earthquake and what was damaged before. From the outside it looked as though the single family homes faired well with the most damage done to the chimneys and very little to no noticeable outside damage.





The main drag through Wells


The old main drag, "old town" where the most damage occurred


You can see the two to three feet of snow in front of the building. Many of the damaged buildings were abandoned. The roofs that were collapsed did so before the earthquake.




Wells in a picture


The media was there in full force. As we were walking around looking at damage we ran into two media guys from a local station, one carrying a camera the other a microphone. They asked us where all the damage was? the guy with the microphone said "where are the damaged houses? It's driving us nuts!" We just laughed.