The Bay Where Giant Waves Come Back

Name: The Bay Where Giant Waves Come Back
Genre: Documentary

The solved physics and century of scars converge on a warning that Lituya Bay's record wave was not its last.

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Transcript

Water surged 1,740 feet up a mountain wall.
It happened in Lituya Bay, Alaska, an ice-scoured tidal inlet.
Its entrance is 33 feet deep, bay drops to 720 feet.
Inner walls rise from 2,200 to over 6,000 feet.
And at least four giant waves had already rushed from its head.
Each wave carved a trimline where forests were totally or nearly destroyed.
Dates span 1853 or 1854 through July 9th, 1958.
July 9th, 1958, a magnitude 7.8 quake shook the region.
Howard Ulrich took his seven-year-old son aboard the Edrie. Its anchor stuck fast.
He gave his seven-year-old son a life preserver and told him to pray.
About 40 million cubic yards of rock plunged into Gilbert Inlet.
A gravity wave moved toward the mouth at 97 to 130 miles per hour.
Two of the three fishing boats outside were sunk; the Sunmore vanished.
The Edrie rode over the crest, then met 20-foot chop packed with ice and logs.
A helicopter supported ground and aerial observations and photos. Waves left trimlines.
The highest measured trimline was 1,720 feet above the bay.
After about a minute of shaking, Howard Ulrich heard a roar.
A scar can record the past, but here it also marks danger ahead.
Lab models reproduced the exceptional run-up with a large air cavity.
The 1958 event stayed inside the bay, never reaching open water.
If air displaced more water than the rock, what happens when the next slope lets go…?

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