{"id":182175,"date":"2026-05-08T07:00:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T11:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=182175"},"modified":"2026-05-07T13:57:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T17:57:44","slug":"2025-close-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=182175","title":{"rendered":"2025 Close Call"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

We all know what a tsunami is, right?\u00a0 Big-a$$ wall of water like what hit several countries December 26, 2004 after an offshore earthquake – that one was 30 meters tall and killed 226,000 and change. Wiki – Tsunami<\/a> \u00a0Heck of a Boxing Day present to the world.<\/p>\n

Now, tsunamis essentially come from a only few sources – an earthquake can cause one, or something like a volcanic explosion can trigger one. However, if a big chunk of land slides into water – look out. The water gets pushed away rapidly, and depending on many factors such as depth and width of the body of water, it can get pretty hairy.<\/p>\n

Let’s wander to the Tracy Arm – a fjord (meaning its depth exceeds its width) southeast of Juneau. Last August a chunk of slope slid into the water.<\/p>\n

\n

Using imagery and digital elevation models from before and after the slide, the researchers estimate that at least 2.26 billion cubic feet of earth collapsed, resulting in a loss of about 500 feet of coastline. They think the rupture likely extended even farther below the water\u2019s surface but lack the bathymetry data to prove this.<\/p>\n

“The resulting tsunami reached more than 1,500 feet up the side of the fjord and sloshed back and forth like bathtub water, creating a seismic \u2018ringing\u2019 that could be detected around the world for up to 36 hours.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

For those of us a little slow on math, that means the wall of water was just under 1\/3 MILE high. And this is a fjord that gets lots of tourist traffic, tour boats, etc. How many fatalities?<\/p>\n

Zero.<\/p>\n

The wave knocked vegetation and topsoil off the walls of the fjord, but at roughly 0530 in the morning, no tourists were upwater (is that even a word?)\u00a0 of the wave. No fatalities at all.<\/p>\n

Alaska seems to get lucky like that – the tallest tsunami on record was at Lituya Bay in 1968. Five killed, but that one was a couple hundred feet.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe largest tsunami wave ever recorded broke on a cool July night in 1958 and only claimed five lives. A 1,720 foot tsunami towered over Lituya Bay, a quiet fjord in Alaska, after an earthquake rumbled 13 miles away.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis massive tremor triggered around 30.6 million cubic meters of rock to fall 3,000 feet into the Lituya Glacier, causing a torrent of displaced water to rear up and form a monstrous wave which, miraculously, only killed five people.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Surfer<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Hopefully we’ll stay lucky. (More so than the 437 folks killed in the 2018 Sunda Strait tsunami caused by a collapse of the flank of Anak Krakatau. You should remember that one.)<\/p>\n

Oh, and if you want to know where the potential is for an even larger tsunami? Urban legend says a Canary Island volcano, Cumbra Vieja, could dump 350 cubic kilometers of land into the Atlantic in one shot, and the resultant tsunami hitting our East Coast 8 hours later would be 160 feet tall and reach 12 miles in land. New York, Boston, DC, Miami… okay, you’re tempting me – but the actual odds of a meta-tsunami staying intact across thousands of miles of ocean, continental shelf edges, etc. are so far past minimal – Jane Fonda would probably get the veteran’s vote first. Mark that one right up there with the “Yellowstone Caldera blowing”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all know what a tsunami is, right?\u00a0 Big-a$$ wall of water like what hit several countries December 26, 2004 after an offshore earthquake – that one was 30 meters tall and killed 226,000 and change. Wiki – Tsunami \u00a0Heck of a Boxing Day present to the world. Now, tsunamis essentially come from a only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[188,503],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-182175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reality-check","category-science-and-technology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ozh1-Loj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182175\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}