Officials begin clearing debris while 3 remain missing in Alaska landslide that left 3 dead
WRANGELL, Ala. — Searchers looking for three people still missing after a massive landslide that killed three others and injured a fourth have changed their strategy from an active search to a reactive search that involves methodically clearing the highway, they said officials Thursday.
“During active search periods, we have searchers in the field diligently searching for missing persons,” Austin McDaniel, a spokesman for the Alaska Department of Public Safety, told the Associated Press. “During reactive searches, search teams are not actively in the field, but will respond to new information and then actively search that area, supported by the new information.”
Since Monday night’s landslide, officials have inspected the site from the air with drones, helicopters and planes, while teams using sniffer dogs and sonar covered the ground and water, but the three people — an adult and two juveniles — remain missing, McDaniel said .
The slide pushed earth from near the mountain’s summit toward the ocean, tearing off a wide swath of evergreen trees and burying a highway in the island community of Wrangell, about 150 miles south of Juneau. Rescue crews found the body of a girl during an initial search on Monday evening and the bodies of two adults late on Tuesday.
About 54 homes were cut off from the city by the landslide, and about 35 to 45 people have chosen to stay in that area, interim city manager Mason Villarma said. Boats are used to deliver supplies, including food, fuel and water, and prescription medications to residents. Given the island’s geography — with the town on the northern tip and homes along a 12.5-mile paved road — currently “the ocean is our only access to those homes,” he said.
Wrangell usually celebrates Thanksgiving with tree lightings and shopping events downtown, but could replace that with a vigil, he said.
That way the city can “physically come together and acknowledge the tragedy and the loss of life … all these adversities,” Villarma said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.
The state transportation department said on social media on Wednesday that the process of clearing the highway would not begin until search and rescue efforts were completed. There was no immediate timeline for when that section of the highway would reopen.
A woman who had been on the top floor of a house was rescued on Tuesday. She was in good condition and receiving medical care. One of the three affected homes was vacant, McDaniel said Tuesday.
Due to the dangers of searching an unstable area, a geologist from the state transportation department was called in to conduct a preliminary assessment, clearing some portions of the slide for ground investigation. But authorities warned of the threat of more landslides.
The slide, estimated to be 450 feet (137 meters) wide, occurred during rain and a storm. Wrangell received about 2 inches of rain Monday morning through late evening, with wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour at higher elevations, said Aaron Jacobs, a hydrologist and meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Juneau.
It was part of a powerful storm system that moved through southeast Alaska, bringing heavy snow and blizzard-like conditions to the capital, Juneau, as well as rain with minor flooding further south.
Jacobs said the rainfall Wrangell received Monday was not unusual, but strong winds could have caused the slide.
Saturated soil can collapse when gusts of wind blow trees onto a slope, says Barrett Salisbury, a geologist with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources.
Wrangell is one of the oldest non-Alaska Native settlements in the state — founded in 1811 when Russians began trading with Tlingits, according to a state database of communities in Alaska. Indigenous people lived in the area for a long time before they had contact with the outside world. Tlingits, Russians, the British and Americans were all responsible for historical influences on Wrangell.