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A massive landslide 11 miles from town destroyed three homes on Nov. 20 - including one that housed a five-member family - and stranded more than 70 residents who lived south of the slide. Timothy Heller, 44, Beth Heller, 36, Mara Heller, 16, and Kara Heller, 11, have been confirmed dead. Derek Heller, 12, and Otto Florschutz, 65, were missing as of Monday night, Nov. 27. Christina Florschutz, a teachers aide at Evergreen Elementary School, survived. The slide occurred shortly before 9 p.m. and...
Workers were able to clear out mud, trees and debris from the landslide zone to allow state and borough officials to reopen Zimovia Highway Tuesday morning for limited use. Initially, the two-lane road will be open for restricted hours: 8 to 8:30 a.m., 12 to 12:30 p.m. and 3:30 to 4 p.m., with the possibility of longer hours later in the week. Access will be limited to residents who live south of the slide. Only people with individual access permits will be allowed to drive past the slide area. Permits are available at City Hall. The highway...
Christina Florschutz, an aide at Evergreen Elementary School, survived the 11-Mile landslide that killed at least four people Nov. 20 - even after debris destroyed her home and trapped her overnight. The evening of the slide, Florschutz went upstairs to take a shower. After she got out, she heard "a horrible noise, a very loud noise." Before she could react, the landslide slammed into her house, tossing her "like a piece of weightless popcorn" around the room until she lost consciousness. When...
Heavy rains, high winds and the unique topography of the area likely caused the Nov. 20 landslide at 11-Mile. The type of landslide that hit Wrangell is called a "debris flow" - a "notably destructive" event that is common in the region, said state geologist Barrett Salisbury at a Nov. 21 press conference. They occur when soil becomes so saturated with water that individual pieces of soil are no longer touching each other, and lack the strength to hold themselves in place. Debris flows can reach...
People living near the landslide's path had a harrowing night Nov. 20, as homes were evacuated and first responders searched for people who were unaccounted for. Stan Guggenbickler was missing overnight after going for a drive on the evening of Nov. 20. He had baked a cake for his son's 18th birthday and wanted to let the cake cool before frosting it, so he headed up the road from his house at Panhandle Trailer Court to Middle Ridge cabin in his truck. After turning onto the road to Middle...
State officials have released the names of the four people killed and two others still missing from the Nov. 20 landslide that hit just past 11-Mile Zimovia Highway. As of Monday, Nov. 27, searchers had found the bodies of Timothy Heller, 44, his wife, Beth Heller, 36, and their daughters, Mara, 16, and Kara, 11. Mara was a high school junior and Kara was in fifth grade. Searchers found Mara's body the night of the slide, during the initial search operations by first responders able to reach the...
Nov. 29, 1923 The U.S. Bureau of Education boat Boxer, Capt. S. T. L. Whittman commanding, with W.T. Lopp, had in its cargo 92 reindeer carcasses from St. Lawrence Island, near the Siberian coast. When Mr. Lopp expressed his willingness to distribute a few of the dressed reindeer among the dealers of Southeastern Alaska, Harry Coulter, manager of City Meat Market, purchased a nice fat reindeer weighing 180 pounds, which was quickly disposed of to the local trade. All who sampled the reindeer meat were more than pleased. The Wrangell Hotel...
Friendship and community support can comfort. Volunteers can collect food and money, provide housing, transportation and fuel. Relief and counseling organizations like churches, SEARHC, the Red Cross and state and federal agencies can help people cope with immediate and long-term emotional and financial needs. But nothing stops the hurt, the deep loss and the fear that it could happen again. The deadly landslide that roared down the mountainside at 11-Mile on Nov. 20 has forever changed not just the geology of the area but the collective...
Southeast Alaska is known for rain, windstorms, mountainsides that loom above residential areas — and landslides that occur with increasing frequency. Sitka knows the risk, and the pain, losing three people in a 2015 landslide. Haines lost two people in a 2020 slide. And now Wrangell is added to the list. That list doesn’t include the multiple landslides over the years that caused damage and fear, but thankfully no deaths. After the 2015 slide, the Sitka Sound Science Center took the lead and worked with the community — and federal money — to...
Growing up in central Virginia and later moving to the Washington, D.C., area, natural disasters took the form of thunderstorms, hurricanes, floods, snowfalls and ice storms. I even experienced an earthquake in Silver Spring, Maryland in the summer of 2011. But until last Monday, my only personal experience with the word “landslide” was when I first heard it on Nov. 7, 1973, when reporters and political pundits used that same word over and over to describe Republican Richard Nixon’s overwhelming victory in the presidential election again...
Counseling and behavioral health services are available as the community comes together to help those in need after the deadly landslide. SEARHC has been providing counseling at no cost, and a private practitioner in Haines also is offering free assistance. Former Wrangell resident and therapist Riley Hall, who is offering free counseling to community members, was living in Haines in 2020 when a landslide killed two people there. The rain continued after the slide, adding to people’s anxiety. “It was really difficult for people to feel saf...
Though disasters like the 11-Mile landslide are infrequent, they’re not unprecedented in Wrangell. In October 1979, a hillside at 1.4-Mile Zimovia Highway gave way, covering more than 20 acres with mud, trees and debris. The town had almost nine inches of rain in the first nine days of the month that year, including a record 24-hour rainfall of 4.49 inches on Oct. 9, the day of the slide. No one was seriously injured and the mudslide did not directly hit any residences. It followed the route of an apartment building driveway as it crossed Z...
Individuals and the borough are eligible for financial aid under the state’s disaster assistance programs. State grants to individuals are limited to no more than $21,250 for housing repairs and up to the same amount for other needs. That could include lost or damaged personal items such as clothing, furnishings and tools; energy costs; medical, transportation or temporary storage expenses. The grant limit is based on a federal standard, explained Jeremy Zidek, public information officer for the state Division of Homeland Security and E...
Several fundraisers have been started to provide aid to people affected by last week’s landslide. Tammi Meissner, Wrangell’s community navigator with the Central Council of Tlingit and Haida, said the Wrangell Strong Community Relief Group Facebook page that she and Jillian Privett set up to help coordinate relief efforts highlights various drives that are underway. Those include the 11-Mile Emergency Relief Fund, an account she opened at City Market and IGA, which will be used for food and paper products needed by those affected by the sli...
The community effort to bring in food and games, set up tables and chairs for a Thanksgiving meal at the community center was intended to help residents come together just days after the landslide tragedy. But it also provided solace for officials who came to Wrangell to help with recovery efforts. For Rhonda Butler, emergency operations specialist for the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska, it was a homecoming. Butler, who is based in Juneau, grew up in Wrangell wi...
Volunteers have come together to help Wrangell, particularly from Petersburg. A crowd of volunteers, which included Parks and Recreation Director Lucy Robinson, Chris and Dixie Booker from C&D Deliveries and fourth-grade teacher Brian Merritt, gathered at the Reliance Dock on Nov. 22 to offload donated relief supplies delivered from Petersburg by Breakaway Adventures. The dozens of plastic totes were filled with food, water, blankets, clothing and other essentials - pet food, too. Written in...
A series of landslides hit Sitka more than eight years ago during heavy rain, with the largest striking a new subdivision and killing three workers. It prompted the community, led by the Sitka Sound Science Center, to set up a landslide warning system. The system includes rain gauges and soil-moisture sensors spread around town, with a website that advises people of the risk level of a landslide. It took about four years to develop the system — and a lot of federal grant money. “We started when we had our landslide. We started calling sci...
The strong storm system that hit Wrangell on Nov. 20 struck across Southeast Alaska, dumping snow in the north, rain in the south and heavy winds throughout. A landslide closed parts of North Tongass Highway in Ketchikan on Nov. 20 and Alaska Power & Telephone reported that several slides and snapped poles took out power on Prince of Wales Island, including at Hydaburg, Thorne Bay, the Klawock-Hollis Highway and between Craig and Klawock. A road was also washed out in Coffman Cove. The Klawock School District opened up its gym for people stuck...
First responders and volunteers working at the site of the deadly landslide have a Wi-Fi signal, thanks to a backpack satellite-link setup the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska sent to Wrangell. The council’s operations center keeps the Starlink setups in Juneau and Sitka for emergencies and community use, said Chris Cropley, director of the Tidal Network at Tlingit and Haida. The council sent two of its Starlink packs to Wrangell on Nov. 22, and the service was up and running at the landslide response site that same d...
If it still seems strange to think of fish growing on farms, it shouldn’t. The global industry has had to grow. Demand for seafood is soaring and will continue to rise. But the oceans are giving up all they can: Production of wild fish around the world has been flat since about 1990. And as the fish-farming industry has grown, the problems of large-scale operations have grown with it. Many are like problems that face massive chicken, pig and cattle operations. The farms and the waste from them can degrade and pollute nearby ecosystems, d...
Subsistence representatives for Southeast have weighed in on a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration planning process that is working to identify potential sites for commercial seaweed, kelp and shellfish farms in Alaska waters. In its comments to NOAA, the Southeast Alaska Subsistence Regional Advisory Council stated its concern that additional mariculture sites not conflict with subsistence harvest areas. NOAA is tasked with identifying 10 Aquaculture Opportunity Areas in the U.S. by 2025, in an effort to advance domestic...
Nearly 80 Alaska tribes are calling on the Biden administration to retain decades-old protections for 28 million acres of land scattered across large swaths of Alaska. The administration is conducting an environmental review to weigh the impacts of potentially opening some or all of the land to future uses that include mining. The protections were created in the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, putting the lands off-limits to uses such as mineral, oil and gas extraction. The lands include vast swaths overseen by the Bureau of Land...
A coalition of hemp growers and manufacturers has sued the Alaska Department of Natural Resources, claiming that new limits on intoxicating hemp products are unconstitutional. The lawsuit, by the Alaska Industrial Hemp Association and four businesses, was filed Nov. 2 in U.S. District Court in Anchorage. Attorney Christopher Hoke, representing the plaintiffs, said the rules mean that virtually every hemp-derived product made in the state and for sale in Alaska — drinks, gummies, cookies and more — will become illegal. “We’re just harming...
Monday, Nov. 20 Agency assist: Search and Rescue. Agency assist: Metlakatla Police Department. Agency assist: Museum. Agency assist: Pretrial. Agency assist: Ambulance. Agency assist: Disaster response. Tuesday, Nov. 21 Agency assist: Welfare check. Agency assist: Fire Department. Agency assist: Hoonah Police Department. Agency assist: Fire Department. Wednesday, Nov. 22 Suspicious circumstance. Lost medication. Fraud. Traffic stop: Verbal warning for failure to drive in a single lane. Thursday, Nov. 23 Nothing to report. Friday, Nov. 24...
Alaska is warming at two or three times the U.S. rate, with impacts ranging from individuals’ health and safety to the military security of the nation, according to a new federal report. The Fifth National Climate Assessment, a multiagency scientific report issued Nov. 14 by the Biden administration in accordance with federal law, includes a chapter devoted specifically to Alaska. Among the most profound impacts of climate change in Alaska are threats to surface construction, such as roads, and buildings, which are now much more costly to maint...
