Estimated read time: 1-2
minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Five years after a 5.7 magnitude earthquake rattled a large section of the Wasatch Front and left behind considerable damage in the Salt Lake Valley, an antique store owner said the event gave him a greater appreciation for life and its fragility.
“We survived it,” said Scott Evans, owner of Euro Treasures Antiques, 470 W. 600 South in Salt Lake City. “We lucked out.”
Evans said his recollection of the day was still vivid.
“There was this noise that I couldn’t believe — I thought a semitruck had come through the front of the building,” he recalled during an interview with KSL-TV. “It was so loud, and then a few seconds later I determined this was an earthquake. My wife was upstairs, and I thought, ‘I’ll head up there and check on her.’ I couldn’t move. I had to grab onto one of the big posts and just hold on for dear life.”
The shop owner said his building was “rattling and rolling.”
“It was pretty scary!” Evans said.
Evans said after an initial estimate of $200,000 in possible damage, the earthquake ended up doing $50,000 in damage to antiques and another $60,000 in damage to the structure of his building.
His experience that day was also documented in a KSL story which captured a 4.6 magnitude aftershock inside the business.
“I remember what your face looked like, that’s for sure,” Evans told KSL-TV news specialist Andrew Adams, who was there at the time. “It was like, ‘What is this?!'”
Ultimately, he said he believed the earthquake could have been even more disastrous than it was.
“It was just amazing what didn’t happen, and it was unfortunate the things that did happen,” Evans said. “It was moving.”
