The Wave That Climbed 1,740 Feet

Name: The Wave That Climbed 1,740 Feet
Genre: Documentary

An earthquake dislodges a mountainside into an Alaskan inlet, throwing water higher than most skyscrapers.

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Transcript

Water climbed a mountainside to 1,740 feet—just the beginning.
Rewind. Lituya Bay is an ice-scoured tidal inlet on the Gulf of Alaska.
Its stem stretches seven miles, walls rise from 2,200 to 6,000 feet.
The bay drops to 720 feet, behind an entrance sill only 33 feet deep.
The forest kept the bay's memory: trimlines where giant waves had erased trees.
At least four giant waves had rushed from its head in little more than a century.
On July 9th, 1958, Howard Ulrich brought his seven-year-old son on the Edrie.
At 10:16 p.m., a 7.8 earthquake struck the Fairweather Fault.
The rupture ran 125 miles, shifting one inlet side 20 feet.
On the Edrie, Ulrich's anchor became hopelessly stuck. Ulrich gave his son a life preserver and told him to pray.
Then roughly 40 million cubic yards of rock plunged into Gilbert Inlet.
The impact drove water violently across Gilbert Inlet toward the opposite wall.
There, the surge climbed to a maximum altitude of 1,740 feet.
The latest wave washed out trees to a maximum altitude of 1,720 feet.
After about a minute of shaking, Howard Ulrich heard a roar.
Inside Gilbert Inlet, the initial wave was at least 100 feet high.

But the 1,740-foot surge was not finished—the displaced water became a gravity wave racing toward three fishing boats in the seven-mile bay…

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