I think that you may be thinking of The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964

I think that you may be thinking of The Great Alaska Earthquake of 1964 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Alaska_earthquake). As far as I know the 1958 earthquake barely gets a historical mention unless it is to talk about the Lituya Bay incident. The 1964 quake was extremely destructive and caused tidal waves that destroyed towns like Cordova and Valdez. These were "normal" sized tidal waves, not 1700 ft monsters like Lituya Bay. As a relevant anecdote, my Dad (who as only 3 years old at the time) and his immediate family lived in Valdez. Thankfully their house was away from the water and they escaped the worst effects. But many friends and townspeople were not so lucky. They all moved to Anchorage afterwards to start over.