"I have been here 37 years and that was the most violent earthquake I have ever felt. It was absolutely terrifying," Kristin Dossett, a resident of Palmer, Alaska, told CNN.

"It shook like I have never felt anything shake before. It just didn't stop. It kept going and got louder and louder, and things just fell everywhere — everything off my dressers, off my bookcases, my kitchen cupboard. Just broken glass everywhere."

Dossett described aftershocks rattling the house and causing things to fall over. Her piano moved a foot and a half from the wall during a particularly strong aftershock.

"You get a little scared because you don't know how big it's going to be," she said.

Hear her describe the moment: