Imagine standing on a boat in a quiet Alaskan bay. The sun is setting. Suddenly, the world starts shaking so violently you can't stand up. Then, you look toward the back of the bay and see something that shouldn't exist. A wall of water. Not just a big wave, but a mountain of water moving at 100 miles per hour. That’s exactly what Howard Ulrich and his seven-year-old son experienced on July 9, 1958. It wasn't a movie. It was the highest tsunami in history, and honestly, it’s a miracle anyone lived to tell the story.
Most people think of tsunamis as things caused by underwater earthquakes in the middle of the ocean. You know, like the devastating 2004 Indian Ocean disaster. But the 1958 Lituya Bay event was different. It was a "megatsunami." The wave reached a staggering height of 1,720 feet. For context, that is taller than the Empire State Building. If you stood that wave up next to a skyscraper, the skyscraper would lose.
Why Lituya Bay Was the Perfect Storm
Lituya Bay is a T-shaped fjord located on the coast of Alaska. It’s beautiful, remote, and incredibly dangerous. The Fairweather Fault runs right through it. On that July night, an 8.3 magnitude earthquake struck. This wasn't just a little tremor; it snapped the earth. About 90 million tons of rock and ice broke loose from a cliff at the head of the bay.
Think about that volume. It’s like dropping a small mountain into a bathtub.
The rock fell from about 3,000 feet up. When it hit the water, it didn't just make a splash. It created a displacement wave. This is a specific kind of physics. Because the bay is narrow and deep, the water had nowhere to go but up and out. The force was so immense that it literally stripped the soil and every single tree off the surrounding mountainsides up to an elevation of 1,720 feet. Geologists like Don Miller from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) arrived shortly after and were stunned. They found a "trimline"—a clear boundary where the forest just... vanished.
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Surviving the Unsurvivable
There were three boats in the bay that night.
The Sunbury sank, and tragically, the two people on board were never found. But the stories of the other two boats are the stuff of legends. Howard Ulrich, on the Edrie, saw the wave coming and realized he couldn't outrun it. He let out his anchor chain, hoping to ride it out. The wave snapped the steel chain like it was a piece of thread. The boat was carried up, up, and over the trees. Ulrich later described looking down at the forest below him. He thought it was the end. Somehow, the boat stayed upright and washed back into the center of the bay as the water receded.
Then there was the Badger. Bill and Vivian Swanson were on board. Their boat was lifted by the wave and carried over La Chaussee Spit. They were literally flying in a boat over land. Bill reported looking down and seeing the tops of trees through the water beneath his hull. The boat eventually hit bottom and began to sink, but the couple managed to get into a small skiff and were rescued by a fishing boat a few hours later.
Why We Call it the Highest Tsunami in History
It’s important to distinguish between "run-up height" and "wave height at sea." In the open ocean, tsunamis might only be a few feet tall. You wouldn't even feel them if you were on a ship. But when they hit land, they grow. The 1,720-foot measurement at Lituya Bay is the run-up height. This is the highest point on the shore that the water reached.
Some skeptics used to argue that it couldn't have been a single wave. They thought maybe it was just a massive splash. However, modern computer modeling by researchers like Hermann Fritz at the Georgia Institute of Technology has confirmed the physics. The combination of the massive rockfall, the narrow fjord shape, and the incredible depth of the water at the impact site created a monster. It is technically the largest wave ever recorded in modern times.
Other Contenders and Misconceptions
You might hear people talk about the Vajont Dam disaster in Italy or the Spirit Lake surge during the Mt. St. Helens eruption. Those were massive, sure. But Lituya Bay remains the king of the record books.
- Vajont Dam (1963): A landslide into a reservoir created a wave that topped the dam by about 800 feet. Huge, but not Lituya Bay huge.
- Mount St. Helens (1980): When the mountain blew, it caused a massive surge in Spirit Lake that reached 850 feet.
- The Molokai Landslide: Scientists have found evidence of a prehistoric tsunami in Hawaii that might have reached 2,000 feet. But since nobody was there with a measuring stick, Lituya Bay keeps the "recorded history" title.
It’s kinda crazy to realize that even though this was the highest tsunami in history, only five people died. If this had happened in a populated area like Vancouver or Seattle, we’d be talking about one of the greatest tragedies in human existence. Because it happened in the Alaskan wilderness, it's more of a scientific marvel.
The Science of Displacement Waves
Normal tsunamis are caused by the seafloor moving up or down. This displaces the entire column of water above it. Displacement waves, like the one in 1958, are caused by something entering the water.
Imagine a "gravity-driven" event. The potential energy of 90 million tons of rock sitting 3,000 feet in the air is mind-boggling. When that energy converts to kinetic energy as it falls, and then transfers to the water, you get a megatsunami. These aren't just ocean events; they can happen in lakes, fjords, and even behind large dams. This is why geologists spend so much time monitoring "slumping" mountainsides in places like Norway and British Columbia.
What This Means for Today
We live in a world where coastal populations are booming. The 1958 event taught us that we need to look beyond the horizon for threats. Sometimes the threat is the mountain right behind you.
Lituya Bay has actually had several large tsunamis—1853, 1874, 1899, and 1936. But 1958 was the "Big One." The bay is still there. It’s still beautiful. You can take a boat into it today, though many captains are understandably nervous about staying too long. The trees have grown back, but if you look closely, you can still see the difference in the age of the forest where the water scoured the earth bare.
Actionable Insights for the Curious and the Adventurous
If you're fascinated by the power of the highest tsunami in history, there are ways to engage with this history safely.
- Monitor the USGS Coastal Hazards Portal: If you live on the West Coast or in Alaska, this is a goldmine. It shows real-time data on seismic activity and potential surge risks. Knowledge is literally power here.
- Visit Glacier Bay National Park: Lituya Bay is part of this park system. While it's incredibly difficult to get to (usually requiring a private charter or a very serious expedition vessel), you can see similar fjord geology throughout the park. The "Fairweather Range" is one of the fastest-rising mountain ranges on Earth.
- Check Your Local Tsunami Maps: If you live near the coast, find your "Inundation Zone" map. These are produced by state emergency management agencies. They don't just account for ocean-born waves but also local landslide risks.
- Study "The Tsunami Society": This is a real group of scientists and engineers who publish the Science of Tsunami Hazards journal. If you want to move past the "wow" factor and into the actual fluid dynamics, their archives are free and fascinating.
- Look for the "Trimline": Next time you are in a mountainous coastal area, look at the forest. If there is a sharp horizontal line where the trees suddenly change from old-growth to younger, smaller trees, you are looking at the footprint of a past event. Nature keeps its own records.
The 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami serves as a sobering reminder that the Earth doesn't always play by the rules we expect. We think of the ocean as something that stays in its basin. But under the right—or wrong—circumstances, it can climb mountains.