A rockslide in Lituya Bay drives a wall of water 1,720 feet up the mountainside; two boats are caught in the surge

At 10:15 p.m. on July 9, 1958, a magnitude 7.8 to 8.3 earthquake ruptured the Fairweather Fault beneath the Alaska panhandle. The shaking sent 30 million cubic meters of rock crashing into Gilbert Inlet at the head of Lituya Bay, displacing water into a wave that scoured the shoreline to 1,720 feet, the tallest wave ever recorded. Two fishing boats anchored in the bay were caught in the surge. Five people died, but Howard Ulrich and his young son survived after their boat, the Edrie, was lifted over the treeline and washed back into the bay…