Crews cleared mud, trees and debris from Ketchikan's Third Avenue last week, cleaning up from the Aug. 25 slide that spilled into a residential area. The landslide, which traveled 1,100 feet down the hillside, was 250 feet across at its widest point, officials said.
Private contractors, state and municipal crews worked long days last week to restore power, remove downed trees and clear truckloads of mud and debris that flowed down the hillside above Ketchikan. Crews focused on reopening streets and drains in case more heavy rain falls on the community.
"We want to approach it methodically and make sure we do it safely ... there is a phasing-in of people moving back to their homes," City of Ketchikan Public Works Director Seth Brakke said Aug. 30.
"There's a lot of damage that happened to certain homes, and there's cars that are crushed, electrical lines that were ripped off of the houses, and all that'll have to be repaired," he said. "It's going to be a long time before life gets back to normal in this area, but we're going to do it one step at a time."
Brakke said the "big priority now" is to get the drains open. "You see the pumping hoses we have here, that's to route the water that's coming down the hill, around this drainage into the next drainage over so this area can stay dry and not flood again, as we get workers in there to remove a lot of debris," Brakke said.
The Aug. 25 slide crossed the Third Avenue Bypass, streaming across Second Avenue and coming to a stop at First Avenue, just a block above Tongass Avenue, Ketchikan's main thoroughfare.
The slide hit about a mile northwest of downtown.
"That's the heart of our town, and now we have to wonder whether the sky's going to fall tomorrow," City of Ketchikan Mayor Dave Kiffer said Thursday, Aug. 29, while touring the area with U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who lived as a child on Second Avenue, near the slide zone.
"When you're racing around on bikes and playing around, nobody ever thinks that there's a threat or a worry, and then stuff like this happens," the senator said.
Much of Second Avenue was under a mandatory evacuation order last week, with several road closures in the area.
"The Third Avenue Bypass will be closed for an indeterminate and extended period of time," the Ketchikan Emergency Operations Center said Aug. 28. "This closure is necessary to allow experts to assess structural components of the road and surrounding terrain."
The emergency operations center reported on Aug. 27 that "geologists did not identify immediate threats for further slides adjacent to the Third Avenue landslide."
The slide killed Sean Griffen, a City of Ketchikan public works employee, who was clearing stormwater drains in the area. Griffin, 42, was trapped in his vehicle. His body was recovered the day after the slide.
Officials said four homes were lost, with additional damage to several more.
Three people were injured in the landslide.
"Some (homes) we will not know for a while and some may have significant flood damage," said Ketchikan Gateway Borough Manager Rodney Dial.
Tons of earth and trees slid 1,100 feet down a steep hillside, crashing into homes below. The landslide was 250 feet wide at its widest point, officials said. "It was a wall of water, of mud and everything," Dial said.
The steep hillside was once densely forested but has turned into a 1,000-foot gully of loose earth and logs lying over bedrock. Without trees to anchor the soil, officials are concerned another storm could wash tons of debris down the hill, causing further damage below.
Some home heating oil tanks in the area "spilled their contents," which flowed downhill, said Ketchikan City Fire Chief Rick Hines, who added that crews had set out absorbent booms to soak up the fuel.
A National Weather Service rain gauge was set up in the area, and drone flights captured high-resolution images over the slide area "multiple times" since the slide occurred, according to city emergency operations officials.
Geological assessments of the Third Avenue Bypass and Copper Ridge Lane landslide sites continued over the weekend, according to officials.
An emergency shelter that had been operated at Ketchikan High School was relocated Friday, Aug. 30, to the Ketchikan National Guard Armory.
The Ketchikan School District planned to open for the 2024-2025 school year on Tuesday, Sept. 3, a week late. The start of classes was delayed while the high school served as an emergency shelter for people displaced by the landslide and, according to a school district announcement, "it cannot safely and reasonably open while the community is grappling with the aftermath of the landslide."
Help came from the Alaska National Guard, U.S. Coast Guard and the Alaska State Defense Force, which provided crews last week to fill and deploy sandbags to help divert water to protect property.
The Anchorage Daily News contributed reporting for this story.
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