Imagine standing on a small fishing boat in a remote Alaskan bay. It’s 10:15 PM, but since it’s July, the "midnight sun" still casts a weird, ghostly glow over the water. Suddenly, the world starts shaking. It’s not just a tremor; it’s a massive 7.8 magnitude earthquake ripping along the Fairweather Fault.
Then comes the sound. Howard Ulrich, who was there with his seven-year-old son, described it as a deafening crash—like an atomic explosion.
Across the water, a literal mountain of rock—roughly 40 million cubic yards of it—dislodged from a height of 3,000 feet. It didn't just slide; it plummeted straight into the narrow Gilbert Inlet. The impact was so violent it was basically like an asteroid hitting a bathtub.
The result? The largest tidal wave ever recorded.
Now, geologists will tell you that technically, this was a "megatsunami" rather than a tidal wave, because tides had nothing to do with it. But in popular culture and search bars, this is the beast everyone is looking for.
The Night Nature Broke the Rules
When that rock hit the water, it didn't just create a ripple. It created a "splash" wave so high it’s hard to wrap your brain around the scale.
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The water surged up the opposite mountainside, reaching a staggering 1,720 feet (524 meters).
To put that in perspective:
- The Empire State Building is 1,454 feet tall.
- The wave was nearly 300 feet taller than that skyscraper.
- It was high enough to submerge more than five Statues of Liberty stacked on top of each other.
Honestly, it sounds like a bad disaster movie script. But the physical proof is still there. Geologists call the boundary where the wave hit the "trimline." Below that line, every single tree—spruce and hemlock that had stood for centuries—was snapped off like a toothpick and stripped of its bark.
The Survivors of Lituya Bay
Most people assume that if you're in the path of the largest tidal wave ever recorded, you’re dead. Period.
But humans are surprisingly resilient.
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There were three boats in the bay that night.
- The Sunmore: Sadly, this boat and its crew vanished. Rescue teams later found nothing but an oil slick.
- The Badger: Bill and Vivian Swanson were on board. Their boat was lifted by the wave and carried over La Chaussee Spit—a strip of land at the mouth of the bay. Bill later recalled looking down and seeing the tops of trees 80 feet below him as he "surfed" the wave out into the open ocean. Their boat eventually sank, but they survived in a skiff.
- The Edrie: Howard Ulrich and his son Sonny were anchored in a smaller cove. When the wave hit, it snapped their anchor chain. Howard managed to keep the bow pointed into the wall of water. They rode it up, up, and up. They survived.
Why Lituya Bay?
You might wonder why this happened in Alaska and not in the middle of the Pacific. It’s all about the shape of the land.
Lituya Bay is a T-shaped fjord. It’s narrow and deep, surrounded by steep mountains. When that massive rockfall hit the head of the bay, the water had nowhere to go but up. It was a "local" tsunami, meaning its energy was concentrated in a small area rather than spreading out across the whole ocean.
If that same rockfall had happened in the open sea, the wave might have only been a few feet high by the time it reached a distant shore. But inside that "geological funnel," it became a monster.
What Most People Get Wrong About "Tidal Waves"
We use the term all the time, but scientists kinda hate it.
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Tidal waves are caused by the moon's gravity. They happen every day. They’re predictable. A tsunami, on the other hand, is a displacement of water caused by a "big event"—an earthquake, a landslide, or a volcanic eruption.
The Lituya Bay event is the gold standard for a landslide-generated megatsunami. It proved to scientists that you don't need a massive underwater earthquake to cause a world-ending wave; a big enough rock falling from a high enough cliff will do the trick just fine.
The Lingering Legacy
Geologist Don Miller, who flew over the bay just hours after the disaster, was the one who documented the 1,720-foot height. He found that this wasn't even the first time it happened. By looking at different ages of trees on the slopes, he figured out that giant waves had hit the bay in 1936, 1874, and the 1850s.
Lituya Bay is basically a "wave factory" because of the active Fairweather Fault.
Lessons for Coastal Safety
While Lituya Bay was a rare "perfect storm" of geography and physics, it changed how we think about coastal hazards.
- Height isn't everything: Even though the Lituya Bay wave was the tallest, it only killed five people because the area was so remote. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was much shorter (about 100 feet at its peak) but killed over 230,000 people because it hit densely populated coasts.
- The "Feel the Quake, Get to High Ground" Rule: If you are near the coast and feel an earthquake that lasts more than 20 seconds, or is strong enough to make it hard to stand, don't wait for a siren. Move inland and uphill immediately.
- Watch the Water: Survivors of various tsunamis often mention the water receding or making a strange "sucking" sound. If the ocean behaves weirdly, it’s time to go.
Your Next Steps
If you're fascinated by the raw power of the largest tidal wave ever recorded, your next move should be looking into tsunami inundation maps for your local area if you live near a coast. Most government geological surveys provide these for free. Understanding where the "safe zone" begins in your specific town is the most practical way to turn this history lesson into life-saving knowledge. You can also check the NOAA Tsunami Warning Center for real-time alerts if you're traveling to high-risk areas like the Pacific Northwest or Hawaii.