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| Photo Credit: AP. |
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A landslide triggered by record rainfall significantly damaged three homes, prompted the evacuation of about a dozen residents and caused power outages in downtown Juneau, Alaska’s capital city.
Geological
assessment teams determined Tuesday that favorable weather has returned the
threat level to pre-slide levels. The city’s public works department was
preparing to begin removing debris, city spokesperson Meredith Thatcher said.
Of the three
homes, one was completely destroyed as it came down the mountain and slammed
into a second home, which was significantly damaged but remains standing, she
said. The extent of damage to the third home was not yet known.
Residents
will be allowed to return to their homes at their own discretion. “If you feel
comfortable going home, you can go home,” Thatcher said.
The local
power company was expected to restore service after the debris has been removed
to the point where crews need to work.
Damage from
the Monday evening landslide was confined to the one residential street above
the downtown business district in the southeast Alaska mountain community of
about 32,000 residents. There were no reported injuries, city officials said.
Evan Hartung
was eating dinner in his home when he heard a rumbling sound over the TV, he
told the Juneau Empire. He just managed to escape the house before the
evergreen tree came swooshing down onto the stairs along the outside of his
home, damaging them. It then knocked his pickup on its side before coming to
rest, partially on top of the vehicle.
“My truck is
squished,” he said.
Sarah
Wallace and her partner live next door to Hartung. They also heard the noise
and looked out their window to see Hartung “running outside without any shoes,”
she told the Empire. That prompted them to also quickly exit their home.
About a
dozen people — either those whose homes were damaged or others who decided to
self-evacuate — stayed at a shelter that was set up by the American Red Cross
at a downtown fire station, Thatcher told The Associated Press.
Residents in
Juneau, located in the Tongass National Forest, the nation’s largest, are
accustomed to a persistent light rain falling, but not deluges like they
experienced Monday.
“We are a
rain forest, so we’re supposed to get rain,,” said National Weather Service
forecaster Kimberly Vaughan in Juneau. “These were record rainfall amounts and
some of them broke the previous records by nearly 2 inches.”
Lena Point,
located about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northwest of downtown Juneau, recorded
3.04 inches (7.72 centimeters) of rain, the highest daily amount in about 30
years of record keeping there. The previous record for precipitation in a
24-hour period was 1.14 inches (2.90 centimeters) in 2017.
Other daily
rainfall records were recorded at the Juneau weather forecast office, with 2.59
inches (6.58 centimeters) beating the previous record of 1.12 inches (2.84
centimeters) in 2009, and 2.22 inches (5.64 centimeters) at the airport,
surpassing the record of 2.02 inches (5.13 centimeters) set in 1936.
The rains
also caused the Mendenhall River to rise in Juneau, prompting some flooding
advisories.
In Skagway,
about 100 miles (160.93 kilometers) north of Juneau, there’s a flood warning in
effect for the Taiya River. The river was at 16.85 feet (5.14 meters) early
Tuesday, just above flooding stage but was expected to drop throughout the day.
Persistent
rain has caused some flooding and led officials to close a campground. There
also have been ongoing landslides since one closed the cruise ship dock last
summer.
A large
slide over the weekend dropped several thousand cubic yards of debris adjacent
to that dock, city manager Brad Ryan said.
However,
there’s been no reports of homes damaged or people injured.
“I think
we’re feeling like we’ve weathered it pretty good,” he said.
Landslides
are common in Alaska. Last May, a slide brought down dozens of full-grown
evergreen trees and debris, temporarily closing a road in the coastal community
of Seward.
In 2020, two
people were killed in the southeast Alaska community of Haines when a slide as
wide as two football fields slammed into a neighborhood. The only route through
Denali National Park and Preserve is closed and expected to remain so through
2024 after the Pretty Rocks landslide covered 100 yards (91 meters) of the
road. Officials are proposing construction of a 400-foot (121.9-meter) bridge
spanning the landslide area.