Wrangell search and rescue efforts continue after deadly landslide

A massive landslide took out three homes on a highway outside of Wrangell late Monday. Three people had been found dead as of Tuesday night, and search and rescue efforts continue, along with an outpouring of community aid.

KTOO’s Anna Canny is in Wrangell and says the most recent update from authorities is that three people are still missing.

Listen:

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This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Anna Canny: So right now, we still don’t know any of those names that have been released publicly. But we do know that at least one minor and two adults have been found dead. One adult woman was rescued, and she was on the top floor of the house, a house on the upper part of the hillside, which helped her survive, and we’re hearing that she’s in good condition.

Meanwhile, the search and rescue efforts are continuing. And we know at different points throughout the day, there have been helicopters and drones doing aerial surveys, looking for those three missing people. There are folks in the slide area working through the mud and downed trees, crews with chainsaws out there, and there are search and rescue dogs on the ground, as well. And those crews were working all day yesterday and today. Community members have been delivering food out the highway to them to help those first responders.

But as of this afternoon, we still have no official word on those who are missing, though we do know that it’s believed to be one adult and two children. We’re told they won’t start clearing that road until those people are found. And then even after they start clearing, it’s not certain how long that will take. It’s a huge amount of debris that’s crossing this highway. And so for the time being, one of Wrangell’s main arteries is blocked off. And we’re hoping folks will be found in the coming days. But it has created a huge blockage here in Wrangell.

Wesley Early: How is that highway blockage disrupting things, if at all?

AC: Yeah, so the slide, as I mentioned, came down across this big highway called Zimovia Highway. And the layout of Wrangell is such that there’s, like, the town, where KSTK (radio) is, on the north end. And then there’s this long highway that snakes to the south along the bottom of these really, really steep slopes, which is where the slide came down. That highway is about 14 miles long. And this massive slide, which we’re now getting estimates it’s about 500 feet wide, came down somewhere past the 11th mile. So now, obviously no one can drive out there.

And when the slide came down, it also took down power and took down landlines along the highway. As of today (Wednesday), some of that power has been restored from the town center, here on the north side, up to Mile 9 of the highway. But that means that there’s still a bunch of households on either side of the slide that don’t have power or phone lines.

We know Tlingit and Haida (Indian Tribes) helped to set up some internet connections, so people are able to stay in touch to some extent. But now that area to the south of the slide is only accessible by boat. So there’s a bunch of households that are essentially cut off from the main town.

WE: Wow. How are the people on the road doing? What do we know about their status?

AC: So we know at least some households have evacuated. They either evacuated the night of — some people heard the slide coming down, got in contact with firefighters and got out by boat that night — and then there’s been ongoing evacuations throughout the course of the day, yesterday (Tuesday) and today. There have been boats going back and forth between the town in the north and the cutoff area in the south. We know there’s one hotel here, the Stikine Inn, that’s hosting evacuees and some of our reporters here talked to at least one evacuee today. And the innkeepers, they’re expecting more are coming in.

And then there are some families that are staying out there, sticking to their homes. And so there have been efforts to bring them supplies to keep them afloat out there since they can’t drive in or access the town without a boat. Water, food and fuel is a big one, because as I mentioned, the power’s out and those that did stay out there are running on generators. So it’s been an all hands on deck effort to deliver those supplies.

We know there was a boat manned by the city of Wrangell that went out several times today to drop off things. And then there are a bunch of independent boats. There are summer tourism boats that went out, fishing boats, I saw a gillnet boat out there today. And then I myself went out with the (U.S.) Forest Service crew on a fuel run this afternoon. They told me that all the local agencies here are pitching in what they can, and so the Forest Service, they had boats, and so they stepped up to use those boats. And as I mentioned, most of these are fuel deliveries. When I was out there today, we delivered about two dozen canisters of fuel that are going to be used to run those generators.

And a lot of donations are coming in to pay for that fuel. I’m told thousands of dollars of donations have come in so far. A bank here has set up an account specifically for that and communities from Ketchikan to Petersburg, and of course, folks here in Wrangell are sending money for those fuel supplies.

So, yeah, the Forest Service did one run yesterday and they plan to resume their daily rounds on Friday again, and between all of those agencies, they’re kind of keeping those households that are stranded out there well-stocked. But yeah, as I mentioned, it’s still a search and rescue effort, and efforts to clear the road have not started. We still don’t have a clear answer on when all that power will be restored. So for right now, all those families on the other side of the slide are stranded.