For years, scientists have believed the Anchorage area isn’t at risk of tsunami because of its location in shallow Upper Cook Inlet. But new research has found a rare confluence of conditions could lead an earthquake-produced tsunami to inundate parts of coastal Anchorage.
Upending previous understanding of Anchorage’s tsunami vulnerability, researchers said Wednesday that a “rare but real risk” exists that a confluence of conditions could lead an earthquake-produced tsunami toThe findings, presented by researchers from the Alaska Earthquake Center and the state Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys, are the result of a first-time effort to model earthquake scenarios’ potential tsunami impact on Anchorage.
“We are thankful for the work the state has done to provide a definitive data that shows the Upper Cook Inlet has a rare but real tsunami hazard,” said Amanda Loach, director of the Anchorage Office of Emergency Management. The city and state will work together to develop a plan to address the risk, she said, starting with a series of community meetings as soon as October.
Researchers have long been modeling tsunami impacts for coastal Alaska communities, first focusing on places that had seen damage in the past, said Barrett Salisbury, one of the authors of the research and the Alaska Earthquake and Tsunami Hazards program manager for the state. It wasn’t until 2018, after a magnitude 7.
Part of the reasoning that Anchorage was “immune” to tsunami destruction, the researchers said, was that during the 1964 earthquake — with a magnitude of 9.2 — there was no observation of a tsunami in Anchorage. But the earthquake, researchers found through modeling,— which went unnoticed because it arrived at 2 a.m. during a minus-16-foot low tide, which meant the water level stayed below normal high tide levels.
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