The March 27, 1964 Alaska earthquake and tsunami caused severe and widespread damage in North America
"I saw entire houses swallowed as the earth opened up to eat them. I could hear the sound of wood snapping and glass breaking as houses slid into the cracks … I saw a giant tidal wave, a wall of water almost a hundred feet tall.".
Steve Eleshansky tells in the interview edited for the book, The Day That Cries Forever, he experienced the earthquake at the age of five.
The 9.2 magnitude earthquake that struck Alaska at 5:36 p.m. local time on March 27, 1964, was classified as the second largest earthquake, worldwide, after the earthquake recorded in Chile in 1960 (M 9.5).). The epicenter was located in College Fjord, Prince William District. The earthquake's effects were widely observed in most of Alaska and, especially, the consequent tsunami reached the Pacific Ocean causing widespread damage and casualties along the coasts of British Columbia, Hawaii and along the western coasts of the United States.
Resonance effects and basin anomalies have been observed in the Gulf of Mexico and many U.S. lakes. Waves close to two meters were observed in some inland basins in Texas and Louisiana.
The event caused 139 deaths 124 of which were associated with the tsunami: 106 deaths in Alaska, 13 in California and 5 in Oregon.
References:
Smelcer, J. E. (2006). The Day That Cries Forever. Anchorage: Chenega Corporation.
Bolt, B. A. (1973). The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964: Seismology and Geodesy: by the Committee on the Alaska Earthquake of the Division of Earth Sciences, National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC, 1972, 596
Lander, J. F. (1996). Tsunamis Affecting Alaska, 1737-1996 (No. 31). US Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, National Geophysical Data Center.
Haeussler, P. J., Lee, H. J., Ryan, H. F., Labay, K., Kayen, R. E., Hampton, M. A., & Suleimani, E. (2007). Submarine slope failures near Seward, Alaska, during the M9. 2 1964 earthquake. In Submarine Mass Movements and their consequences (pp. 269-278). Springer, Dordrecht.