3 dead, 3 missing after landslide rips through remote Alaska fishing community
Three people were killed and three others were missing after a landslide barreled down a heavily forested, rain-soaked mountainside and smashed into homes in a remote fishing community in southeast Alaska.
The slide — estimated to be 450 feet wide — occurred about 9 p.m. Monday during a significant rain and windstorm near Wrangell, an island community of 2,000 people some 155 miles south of Juneau, the state capital.
Rescue crews found the body of a girl during an initial search, and the bodies of two adults were found late Tuesday by a drone operator.
Searchers used a cadaver-sniffing dog and heat-sensing drones to search for two children and one adult who were unaccounted for after the disaster, while the Coast Guard and other vessels looked for signs of the missing along a waterfront littered with rocks, trees and mud.
Alaska State Troopers spokesperson Austin McDaniel said a woman had been rescued from the upper floor of one of the three homes that were struck. She was in good condition and receiving medical care.
One of the homes was unoccupied when the landslide struck, McDaniel said.
“Our community is resilient,” Mason Villarma, interim Wrangell borough manager, told the Associated Press in a phone interview. “And it always comes together for tragedies like
this. We’re broken, but resilient and determined to find everybody that’s missing.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a disaster declaration for Wrangell, saying he and his wife were heartbroken and praying for all those affected.
The Mendenhall River flooded on Saturday because of a major release from Suicide Basin above Juneau, Alaska’s capital.
The landslide left a scar of barren earth from near the top of the small mountain down to the ocean. A wide swath of evergreens was uprooted, and debris cut off power and road access to about 75 homes.
Troopers said that a large-scale search-and-rescue mission wasn’t initially possible because the site was unstable and hazardous.
A geologist from the state transportation department flew in from Juneau, and after conducting a preliminary assessment said that some areas of the debris field were safe enough for ground searches.
Troopers warned of the threat of additional landslides. They urged people caught on the far side of the slide, away from Wrangell, to leave by boat.
Wrangell received about 2 inches of rain between 1 a.m. and 8 p.m. Monday, with wind gusts of up to 60 mph at higher elevations, said Aaron Jacobs, a hydrologist and meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau.
We need as much renewable energy as we can get, as fast as we can get it. Even if that’s painful.
The storm was part of a strong system that moved through southeast Alaska, bringing heavy snow in places and blizzard-like conditions to Juneau, and rainfall with minor flooding to areas farther south. Landslides also were reported in the Ketchikan area and on Prince of Wales Island, he said.
Another storm system was expected in the Wrangell area late Wednesday into Thursday.
Wrangell is one of the oldest non-Alaska Native settlements in the state, founded in 1811 by Russians who were trading with the area’s Indigenous Tlingits. The British later ruled the community for nearly three decades before the U.S. bought Alaska from Russia in 1867.
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