Kenai Fjords

National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

Tsunami Risk for Park Properties

The Tsunamis of 1964
Seward suered a devastating blow in 1964 when tsunami waves, generated by a large earthquake and associated underwater landslides, decimated portions of the town. Yet the city has experienced considerable economic growth since the 1964 earthquake. Much of the infrastructure related to this growth has been built in areas innundated by the 1964 tsunami waves, including a number of Kenai Fjords National Parks properties. A recently completed report for the city of Seward, provides new data. Which have been used to create maps indicating the potential maximum area of inundation that may be caused by a tsunami wave.
Park Buildings Relative to Tsunami Inundation Zone
Kenai Fjords National Park
National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior

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Park Owned Property 1964 Observed Inundation Limit (Lemke, 1967) Maximum Estimated Inundation Extent

Visitor Center

everal of Kenai Fjords National Park properties are within areas threatened by tsunami inundation.
Staff Apartments
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The potentially devastating eect of Alaskan tsunamis has led to the creation of the Alaska Tsunami Mapping Team. This team evaluates and maps the potential inundation for areas along the Alaskan coastline through the use of numerical modeling of tsunami waves. Tsunami models use bathymetric (sea oor terrain) data that correspond to the Mean High Water (MHW) at the time that the studies were conducted. These models do not consider the eects of potential sea level rise on tsunami inundation.

Ray Building
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Shea Property

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Harbor Dinner Club Mai House Old Solly's

Legends

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A map indicating the predicted maximum inundation level of a tsunami and the 1964 tsumai high water line as well as the location of park properties.

Current Risk
The map above displays a 2005 satellite image of Seward and highlights the location of park properties relative to both the tsunami inundation in 1964 and the estimated inundation that might occur in a future event. The Information Center, Old Sollys, and Legends all lie within the identied inundation zone, while the Mai house, Shea property, and Ray building are close to, but outside this inundation zone. Evacuation zones, areas designated by emergency services authorities which must be evacuated in the event of a formal warning, are not indicated on this map, but it should be assumed that they extend further into town than the maximum forecasted inundation level. January, 2012

Aerial view of damage and fuel tank res cause by the 1964 tsunami waves, Seward, AK. Image courtesy of Anchorage Museum.

Kenai Fjords Resource Brief

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Image of Seward, AK. dashed white lines indicates the approximate margin of debris resulting from a submarine landslide triggered by the 1964 earthquake (Suleimani et al. 2010).

Landslide Generated Tsunamis

In addition to tsunamis created by earthqukes, they can also be generated by near shore underwater landslides. After the 1964 earthquake, submarine landslides throughout coastal Alaska generated more than 20 local tsunamis. The earthquake of 1964 triggered a chain of slope failures o the coast of Seward, which resulted in a portion of the coastline to slide into the ocean taking much of the port infrastructure with it. Future earthquakes have the potential to trigger under water landslides almost instantaneously, which can generate tsunamis without warning. A study that analyzed tsunami catalog data for the North Pacic coast concluded that this area has a long recorded history of landslide generated tsunamis. Research found tsunamis generated by earthquakes occurring in open ocean had relatively smaller amplitudes compared to those generated by local landslides. Resurrection Bay is a probable location for future underwater landslides due to the abnormally steep submarine slopes of the Resurrection River Delta. In the event of another large earthquake, some researchers believe that the same slopes that failed during the 1964 earthquake could fail again. Lowell Creek and Fourth of July Creek have been rerouted by human inuence, causing sediment to be deposited in new areas of the bay. This could lead to future underwater landslides because these new sediments may be unstable. Tsunami Rish for Park Properties

The Bottom Line...

The 1964 tsunami inundated the area where the Information Center is now located. The Information Center, Legends, and Old Sollys all lie within the area potentially inundated by a future tsunami. Park sta should be aware of this hazard for the safety of the public, park employees, and the risk to Kenai Fjords property.

REFERENCES: Lemke, R.W., 1967, Eects of the earthquake of March 27, 1964, at Seward, Alaska: U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 542-E: 48.
Suleimani, E.N., Nicolsky, D.J., West, D.A., Combellick, R.A., and Hansen, R.A., 2010, Tsunami inundation maps of Seward and northern Resurrection Bay, Alaska: Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys Report of Investigation 2010-1, 47 p., 3 sheets, scale 1:12,500.

Program contact: Deb Kurtz P.O. Box 1727 Seward, AK 99664 (907) 422-0544 Deborah_Kurtz@nps.gov http://www.nps.gov/kefj/