City crews worked through the early afternoon on Monday (11-2-20) clearing landslide debris from a Sitka neighborhood, following a weekend of heavy rains.
No one was injured in the event — only a road was blocked. But a large amount of mud and logs had to be removed.
Harry Greene is Sitka’s maintenance and operations superintendent. He says what began as one slide Sunday evening became two slides by Monday morning:
“We had a slide that was about 6 P.M. last night,” Greene said. “We opened it up so you could get up the road. We planned on clearing it out this morning, but then we had another slide come down between 9:30 P.M. and 5:00 A.M. this morning.”
The slide fell about 100 feet, from just below the houses on the upper part of Sand Dollar Drive, and blocked the lower part. Although no structures were damaged in the event, at least two homes appear to be at risk of undercutting if more material comes down. Greene says the slide occurred mostly on private property, and he’s unsure what mitigation measures might be needed to stabilize the slope.
He says that a significant amount of material came down.
Greene — I estimate that we’re going to move about 500 yards to get the road open.
KCAW — That’s like… 10 yards per truck, 50 truck loads.
Greene — Exactly.
Sitka and Southeast Alaska were battered by heavy weather conditions over the weekend, as dual storm systems rolled in one after the other on Saturday and Sunday nights. Total rainfall in Sitka ranged from 6-8 inches for the storms. Wind gusts in Sitka’s harbor hit 59 miles per hour, with a peak gust of 63 miles per hour at the Alaska Marine Lines dock in Starrigavan Bay.
