The great Alaskan earthquake on Good Friday, March 27th, 1964, was surprising, and the lessons from the response are helpful in understanding how we respond to the COVID pandemic today.

"The earthquake overwhelmed people the way the strongest emotions do," wrote our guest, Jon Mooallem recently in The New York Times. "It was pure sensation, coming on faster than the intellect's ability to register it."

A big theme of Jon's new book, "This Is Chance!" is how the citizens of Anchorage almost instantly became "a wave of unofficial first responders." Despite officials' fears of panic, looting and violence, many people rose to the occasion, with countless acts of kindness. The crime rate plummeted, just as it has in recent weeks in New York.