September 22, 1911 Tsunami: Prince William Sound, AK, United States
A tsunami caused by a magnitude 6.9 earthquake and a landslide began at Prince William Sound, AK, United States on September 22, 1911 at 05:01:24 UTC. Its effects were recorded at 1 place.
Where the waves reached
The source (white) and every runup with a place, colored by the water height recorded there. A ring is a runup NCEI marks doubtful.
- Under 1 m
- 1 to 3 m
- 3 to 10 m
- 10 to 30 m
- 30 m and more
- Height not recorded
Travel times
How long the first wave took to reach each part of the ocean, one line for each hour up to 24, estimated from the source and the depth of the sea.
The travel times are computed in your browser, which needs JavaScript.
- 1 to 4 hours
- 5 to 6 hours
- 7 to 14 hours
- 15 hours and more
Computed in your browser the way NOAA’s own travel time maps are: the wave travels at the square root of gravity times the depth, over NOAA’s ETOPO1 depths averaged to a 10 arc-minute grid. Checked against NOAA NCEI’s maps for 21 tsunamis over the first 24 hours, these lines fall within 10 minutes of NCEI’s at half the points compared and within 52 minutes at 9 in 10. They give when the first wave could arrive, not how high it is; bays, harbors and island chains finer than the grid can see it later. Not for use in a warning: see tsunami.gov.
The tsunami
- Date
- September 22, 1911, 05:01:24 UTC
- Source
- Prince William Sound, AK, United States
- Cause
- Earthquake and landslide
- Earthquake
- Magnitude 6.9, 60 km deep
- Runups recorded
- 1
- Tsunami intensity (Soloviev-Imamura)
- 0.5
- Waters
- Ocean
- How certain
- Very doubtful tsunami
- Source location
- 60.500° N, 149.000° W
The toll
- Damage
- Limited (under about $1 million) with the earthquake or eruption that caused it
Where the literature gives no number, NCEI records a description on a scale of 1 to 4, printed here in its words. Damage is in millions of US dollars of the year of the event, not adjusted for inflation.
What the record says
NCEI’s account, from the sources it cites.
Reference #542:
This magnitude 6.9 earthquake was severe, producing multiple landslides throughout the region. A submarine cable near Valdez was severed close to the point where a cable was broken in the February 14, 1908 earthquake at Prince William Sound; circumstances suggest that the break was a result of vertical uplift. At Golden, on the shores of Wells Bay in northern Prince William Sound, rockslides buried a gulch. One huge slide, carrying with it a part of a small glacier, missed the town of Golden by only a few hundred feet. The waters of Wells Bay were agitated, and thousands of fish were killed. The shock was heavy in the mountains of the Kenai Peninsula. An observer north of Kenai Lake reported difficulty remaining upright, swaying trees, and rocks rolling down the mountain slopes. Several aftershocks were reported in the area.
Every runup
Nearest the source first. Heights are above sea level at the time; a tide gauge reads half the wave’s full height.
| Where | Country | Km from source | Water height, m | Inland, m | Measured by | First wave, UTC | Deaths |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Port Wells (Bay), AK, AK doubtful | United States | 62 | Eyewitness observation of water height |
More
Every tsunami in 1911The 1900sTsunamis of United StatesThe earthquakeThis day in weather historyAlerts in force
Sources
Tsunami events and runups from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, Global Historical Hazard Database, cited as NCEI/WDS, doi:10.7289/V5PN93H7. Public domain. Read 2026-09-24. NCEI tsunami event 1399.