Continental Casualty Company v. Jessie Giddings Thompson

At about 5:35 P.M. on March 27, 1964, the Alaska earthquake and tidal wave dramatically involved the vessel Chena, a Liberty type freighter, then docked at the port of Valdez, Alaska.

As the ship’s captain described events, the quake on shipboard was first felt as a series of tremendous shocks. The ship experienced a pounding and started to rise on a swell; she was lifted thirty to fifty feet while being swept inshore seventy to eighty feet over the top of the docks. There she experienced several heavy rolls and came down on her bottom on top of the docks two or three times. Buildings on shore could be seen collapsing. Men could be seen below on the docks running out of collapsing buildings, falling into holes on the dock, which were then obliterated as the ship descended on them. The ship then fell off on its starboard or offshore side, throwing everything loose to that side. To the captain it did not seem possible that she could right herself. A tremendous mound of water, appearing to be several hundred feet high, then started to build up offshore. The ship fell into the side of this mound, which righted the ship, and then, building into a huge wave, lifted and carried her…