It happened on August 18, 1959. PART II: Waves and tremors at Hebgen Lake threaten dam. “Probably 35 years and they’ve never been back to this area,” Girvin said. If you go now, you will see it constantly erupting - it hasn’t stopped since Aug. 17, 1959.The ‘59 quake damaged the tracks and caused $30,000 - $40,000 of damage to the train company’s dining hall. They feature photos taken by John Owen, who was 15 at the time of the quake. Hebgen Lake is an idyllic body of water, famous for its trout fishing. Park officials determined they had enough food to last until those roads could be opened. Some time after that the lodge owner married John's mother. Director of Earthquake Studies for Montana Tech, either the canyon where so many people were killed. “So it does fewer eruptions during the day, putting out more water in each one,” said Xanterra Historian Leslie Quinn. Her father had heard the fishing was good. Eventually, John's father passed away, as did the wife of the resort owner. But Brooke says there’s no comparison. The massive 7.3 quake took 28 lives and changed the landscape just west of Yellowstone National Park along the Madison River.MTN News reached out to survivors of the event who remember that night and the days that followed. “The fireplace here kind of twisted on its axis, so that two of the four flues were blocked,” said Yellowstone National Park Historian, Alicia Murphy. “And almost cut his arm off,” Yetter recalled. He continued: “The largest earthquake ever recorded happened near Hebgen Lake in 1959, and it … But 19 people never made it out. But visitors kept coming - just from other entrances. He radioed his report to another man south of Ennis who would then pass the message up the line. Back at the lake, Cunningham wasn’t going anywhere. But some of the park’s west side roads did not. This temblor turned out to be a normal fault earthquake in which the lake-facing flank of the fault, which had been deemed “dormant”, dropped by almost 20 feet. If you want to see a long-lasting effect of the quake in Yellowstone, head to the Fountain Paint Pots area, in the lower Geyser Basin, near Old Faithful and look for Clepsydra Geyser . Some escaped and some suffered serious injuries. “That was opened for the first time in decades,” said Quinn. Firehole Canyon Drive is a one-way scenic road today. “We don’t believe that earthquakes can get much larger in this region,” said Mike Stickney, Director of Earthquake Studies for Montana Tech in Butte.Books and articles have been written about the tragedy. For others, escaping the park became an adventure all in itself. But, geologists were caught off guard on the evening of August 17, 1959, during the Hebgen Lake earthquake which would inevitably create a new lake on the Madison River following a landslide. The earthquake had a particular effect on Hebgen Lake, which had been created along the Madison River with the creation of the Hebgen Dam. The havoc began shortly before midnight when visitors and locals alike were rudely awakened by a magnitude 7.5 earthquake. And it hit hard. Categories:   On the night of August 17, 1959 at 11:37 p.m. a magnitude 7.5 earthquake occurred near Hebgen Lake in Montana. Magnitude measurements of the earthquake varied from 7.3 to 7.8 placing it as one of the strongest earthquakes in North America and the most severe in the Rocky Mountain area. Copyright 2020 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. “The earthquake dropped the road about 12 to 15 feet straight (down), just a cliff,” said Yetter. A photo from Aug. 18, 1959, shows a cabin submerged a day after the earthquake. Old Faithful Inn survived.  |  Most have something in common. “And before long there was just a stream of cars coming in,” Owen said. But the lake itself was heavily affected by the 7.3 quake. Fearing the Hebgen Dam would burst after the quake, the owner of the resort where the Owen family was staying told his guests to flee to nearby high ground. The Hebgen Lake earthquake—the largest and deadliest earthquake recorded in Montana and the Intermountain West—occurred at 11:37 p.m. (local time) on Monday, August 17, 1959. Most have something in common. Even sixty years after the Hebgen Lake earthquake, the fault scarp is clealy visible in the forest near Cabin Creek camp. The water immediately began to accumulate behind the natural dam piled up by tons of slide debris. He was in a vacation cabin with his family that night and still remembers being jolted awake.“I was thrown off the couch onto the floor,” Owen said, recalling the fateful night. At the other end of the lake, the dam held. Trapped inside, the man broke a window to climb out. That earthquake, formally known as "The Hebgen Lake, Montana, earthquake of August 17, 1959", was widely publi-cized, and as a result of the public's keen interest in the geologic features formed during the earthquake, the Forest Service set aside the area of Afterwards, 4.5 to five minutes. However, less than six miles downstream from the dam, another side effect of the earthquake caused a much more severe and immediate problem. But that wasn’t all. A powerful earthquake that struck the Hebgen Lake area near Yellowstone National Park in 1959 also left a powerful mark on a 7-year-old boy who was asleep in his Idaho Falls home. The area was filled in with 80 million tons of debris that came from a nearby mountain. Quake Lake, the 190-ft.-deep, 6-mile-long body of water officially known as Earthquake Lake, was created by a seismic event like a catastrophic scene out of a doomsday film. Today, Cunningham is host of the Cabin Creek Campground. One of the prime examples of how much havoc a sequence of events can cause took place sixty years ago today in the area around Hebgen Lake near Yellowstone National Park in southwestern Montana. Fearing the Hebgen Dam would burst after the quake, the owner of the resort where the Owen family was staying told his guests to flee to nearby high ground. You know, some day Old Faithful should actually stop. It's severe ground shaking was the first blow, which struck the area. The power of this earthquake was immense. “But the coverage was all over England on the televisions, so I knew exactly where they were talking about.”. “A combination of the earthquake stopping it and the reduction in usage, they decided not to bring passengers in to West Yellowstone anymore,” said Clyde Seeley, owner of the Three Bears Lodge. “We walked up to the memorial boulder and they pointed out where they were camped. This is a worthwhile stop on the way to West Yellowstone and the West entrance to the National Park. Like ghosts these leafless trees stick out of Earthquake Lake sixty years after the lake was created by a giant landslide. Twenty-foot fault scarps that opened up that night are still visible, if grown over. “It lasted for a good minute,” said Brook Cunningham who was at the lake that fateful night. Afterward, 85 to 95 minutes. Earthquake Lake Visitor Center. Before the quake, eruption intervals were between 60 and 65 minutes. At the same time, the slide completely blocked the flow of the Madison River. Although the Army Corps of Engineers began to breach this dam a few weeks after the catastrophe, the outflow was kept to a minimum so as not to wreak havoc by producing a sudden flood downstream. 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