July 10, 1958 Southeastern Alaska Tsunami - Lituya Bay Narrative
Passage from Roberts (1961):
"...Still farther south, mountain-girt Lituya Bay lay near the foot of
15,320-foot Mount Fairweather itself. Inside LaChausee Spit at the bay entrance
were two boats, the Badger, aboard which Bill and Vivian Swanson, of
Auburn, Wash., lay asleep, and the Sunmore, occupied by Orville Wagner,
of Idaho Inlet, and his young wife Mickey. Farther in, near Lituya's south
shore, were Howard Uhlrich and his 7-year-old son Junior, in the 38-foot
Edrie. Just in from a day of fishing, they all sought a night's shelter
before undertaking another day of labor in the Alaskan Gulf.
...The Swansons and the Uhlrichs in Lituya Bay rose in alarm to gaze in
unbelieving wonder and terror. Swanson and his wife later insisted that the
terminal ice mass of Lituya Glacier rose into view from behind a headland up the
bay, with great masses falling from its face, and then fell majestically into
the water, creating a wave that went over the whole headland. It then caromed
down the bay, scouring the shores of their trees, obliterating the mountaineer's
campsite, overrunning Cenotaph Island and its lone cabin, and killing the
Wagners and all but killing the Swansons in a surfboard kind of plunge of their
two boats across 40-foot high LaChausee Spit to destruction in the sea outside -
a wave of such improbability as to strain the credulity of later investigators,
and to remain a scientific puzzle.
...Eyewitness stories of the Lituya Bay events come from the Swansons and from
Howard Uhlrich. Bill and Vivian Swanson, occupants of the Badger during
her mad flight across LaChausee Spit in company with the ill-fated Wagners,
somehow managed to get clear of the wreck in an 8-foot punt, undergoing exposure
and fright as well as loss of their worldly possessions, before their rescue by
a fisherman named Graham in the trawler Luman. They were quickly flown
to Juneau in a rescue plane and, after a short hospital rest, were able to
describe their experience. They were sure they had seen the glacier riding high
into sight from behind the western mountain, followed by a great wave of water
washing over its steep face. During the following wild ride across the spit
they believed they were 100 feet high, for there had been trees on the spit, and
they were above them. They looked down on rocks as big as houses. They were
incredulous and deeply thankful to be alive.
The story told by the other survivors, Howard Uhlrich and his son, will probably
be unmatched for a long time to come. In a vivid account published in the
Alaska Sportsman Uhlrich tells how they enetered the bay on the last of the
floodtide for rest after a day of poor fishing. He anchored Edrie in a
cove on the south side a mile or so inside the entrance, and after supper he and
Sonny went to sleep, only to be awakened by violent motions soon after 10:15.
Dashing to the deck, Uhlrich beheld the writhing and twisting of the high peaks
and the clouds of dust and flying snow about their summits. Petrified, he
watched for 2 minutes or more until his attention was attracted to a new sight.
There was a gigantic wall of water which he thought to be 1800 feet high
erupting against the western mountain, then coming down the bay, cutting a swath
through the trees on the summit of Cenotaph Island, backlashing against the
eastern shore up to a height of 500 feet, then heading for the Edrie, now
a wall of water 50 feet high.
Suddenly he realized he had to move. Cursing himself for delaying, he got a
life jacket on Sonny, then somehow got the engine going, but he was unable to
heave the anchor in time. Just before the water struck he veered the chain to
its end, hoping to slip it, at the same time maneuvering the Edrie to
face the wave. As she lifted to the swell the chain tightened and snapped, its
short end whipping up and winding around the pilothouse. The boat was swept,
completely out of control over what had been dry land a moment before. By now
Uhlrich remembered his radio. Shouting into it, he made the international
voice-radio distress call, "Mayday, Mayday - Edrie in Lituya Bay - all
hell broke loose - I think we've had it - goodby!" The wave, however, changed
course and bounced off the shore, allowing Uhlrich, with strenuous efforts and
certainly with superb seamanship, to get his boat under a kind of control. He
now began devoting himself to evading huge chunks of churning ice, any one of
which could have made kindling wood of the Edrie."
Return To:
July 10, 1958 Damage Summary
July 10, 1958 Main Page
Past Tsunamis Page
WC/ATWC Home Page