Karen ‘Dean’ Katelnikoff was born and raised in Chenega. She was attending boarding school in Wrangell and was 14 when the 1964 Earthquake and Tidal wave hit her small village of Chenega. The devestating loss claimed the precious lives of 23 people of Chenega and washed the entire structure of the village out into the ocean. The story ‘1964 Earthquake and Tidal Wave’ told by Karen ‘Dean’ Katelnikoff isn’t one of just pure loss but also one of survival. She tells an amazing story of how her father and brother rode the first tidal wave out on a log. They not only survived but as they were washed back into the bay her father was able to rescue her 8 year old sister who was stuck in the mud, carrying her up to higher ground before the next wave came in. Her other brother was miraculously able climb a high cliff in a matter of minutes after the earthquake and witnessed the entire  destruction of his village. His words retold by Dean were, “Our whole lives were in that bay, everything. Our houses, our kids, our aunts and uncles, our grandparents, our pets.”