The Upper Lynn Canal is facing its third major snowstorm in two weeks, with up to 17 inches forecasted for Haines and up to 15 for Skagway on Friday alone.
“I really urge folks to get home and stay home,” Matt Boron, a maintenance and operations foreman with the state Department of Transportation in Haines, said in a phone interview on Friday afternoon.
Boron said plow crews are struggling to keep pace with the blizzard, which triggered an avalanche early Friday along the Haines Highway and created whiteout conditions for much of the day. DOT closed a large section of the highway Friday afternoon, from just north of town to 21 Mile due to avalanche risk and “deteriorating weather.”
“We’re having a very hard time keeping up,” Boron said. “We can’t even see the roads involved ourselves to keep it safe for everybody.”
As to the avalanche, Boron says a lot of snow came down from a cliff above the road, but that it wasn’t a major slide that originated high on the mountain. He said Haines doesn’t have a lot of “traditional avalanche issues,” but that the risk is high and conditions are “ripe for anything.”
Boron noted the department is monitoring the area around 20 Mile along the Haines Highway — a known avalanche path near Klukwan — but so far hasn’t detected any avalanche activity.
“To be honest, I don’t know, I can’t see anything,” he said. “That’s why I’m urging people to get home and stay home, because if any of those things happen, people aren’t out.”
He said crews are having a hard time plowing in town due to traffic but that they will work to keep roads open, including Lutak Road to the ferry terminal. Crews will not return today to plow Mud Bay Road or Lutak Road beyond the ferry terminal.
