Over the years, numerous people impacted by the quake have shared their stories. It’s about 27 miles from West Yellowstone and is open from May through September. Forest Service operates an Earthquake Lake Visitor Center off Highway 287 directly across from where the landslide took place. Steamboat, the world’s tallest geyser inside Yellowstone’s Norris Geyser Basin, erupted about three years later after being dormant for 50 years. The Hebgen Lake earthquake apparently destroyed the basin’s biscuit-like formations. “Within a few days of the quake, Sapphire Pool, a previously quiet hot spring in Yellowstone’s Biscuit Basin, began erupting over 200 feet high.” Within two to three years following the earthquake, Old Faithful’s average eruption interval increased to 74 minutes,” the University of Montana reports. “Prior to the quake, Old Faithful’s average eruption interval was 65 minutes. RELATED | How Yellowstone got its name and its beginnings as America’s first national park Though the earthquake was 13 miles away from Yellowstone National Park, it had a longterm effect on some of the park’s thermal features. The majority of roads in the area were reopened several days later. The state got to work clearing debris and repairing roads and bridges, including Hebgen Dam. Rescue helicopters were sent in the next day to rescue survivors trapped on Refuge Point. “(It’s) like we’d been in one world in the campground and somebody picked us up and put us on a different planet.” “In the morning, it was like we were in a new world,” Joanne Gartland, a survivor of the disaster, recalls. But the quake’s destruction left behind what KBZK describes as a “wasteland” that was unrecognizable to locals. Though the canyon was pummeled with water, somehow Hebgen Dam held firm. Stickney says the ground never stopped shaking the night of the quake.Ī total of 250 people escaped to what is now known as Refuge Point, a mountain peak in the quake’s path. The quake’s aftershocks were reportedly bigger than magnitude 6.5. “The Hillgard Fishing Lodge … fell into a gaping fissure caused by the displacement and plummeted into the lake just moments after owner Grace Miller (whose house is pictured in the main image above this story) jumped from inside the building,” reports the University of Montana. ![]() Montana Highway 287 was destroyed, along with a popular fishing lodge on the north side of Hebgen Lake. The area the river engulfed is now known as Earthquake Lake.Ĭommunities along the river’s path, including Ennis, evacuated. KBZK says the rocks that fell were “the size of houses.” The Madison River flooded the canyon, burying trees and campgrounds, including the one where the Owens stayed. As debris plummeted to the canyon floor, a new natural dam formed at the foot of the canyon several miles downstream from Hebgen Dam,” the University of Montana says. “Shortly following the massive quake, an immense slab of (rock) detached from the canyon slope and slid swiftly into the valley, snapping trees and tossing thousand-pound boulders in a fierce disarray. The initial quake lasted less than a minute, but it only took a few seconds for the ground to collapse along the fault line and leave a 20-foot wall of exposed earth in its wake. A fault line extended along the underbelly of the canyon. Originally, the Madison River flowed in a northwest direction from Hebgen Dam through a mountain canyon toward Ennis. “Before long, there was just a stream of cars coming in,” Owen said. The owner of the resort where Owen and his family were staying was concerned the Hebgen Dam would burst, and he told the Owens to evacuate. “I was thrown off the couch onto the floor,” Owen says in the 2019 interview with KBZK.
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