The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced last Thursday that President Joe Biden had approved a major disaster declaration for Ketchikan’s Aug. 25 landslides.
The massive landslide came down over a residential neighborhood, killing a city worker, destroying homes and infrastructure and blocking the Third Avenue Bypass, one of the main arteries through town.
Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy had issued a state disaster declaration within hours of the slide, but the new federal announcement means FEMA money will be available to the city. Ketchikan City Manager Delilah Walsh said the cleanup and recovery process has already cost the city nearly $1.6 million, and she estimates more than $1 million in repairs are still outstanding.
The work still to be done includes rebuilding electric and water infrastructure on Second Avenue, rehabilitating some Third Avenue pavement and adding street lights, and repairing the road on Copper Ridge Lane that was hit by a smaller landslide on the same day.
Walsh said it was never a certainty that the federal aid would be approved.
“I honestly did not know, just because it was such a small amount relative to everything else that’s gone on in the country,” she said. “It seemed that since Juneau got their federal declaration, that we would too.”
Biden had opened up FEMA funds to Juneau after glacial outburst flooding in August, and Walsh said the capital’s municipal recovery costs were comparable to Ketchikan’s.
The city still needs to apply for federal reimbursement, but Walsh said local officials have been very conservative in the cleanup process, so she’s optimistic the vast majority will be approved. Any FEMA awards will require a 25% local match, which Walsh is hopeful will be covered through the state’s disaster fund.
“We may be holding the bag on a few items. We don’t know what those are. We won’t know until the assessors come down and we do the project worksheets and all the documentation,” Walsh said. “But our hope is that if we are impacted, or if we have to pay any money from the city of Ketchikan, that it’s minimal compared to what it would be if we had to hold the entire cost on our own.”
The new public assistance funding won’t apply to individuals, but the new declaration will open a process for private homeowners affected by the slide to apply for FEMA assistance. Walsh said the city will make sure to let the public know once that process opens.