Avalanche risk rose over the weekend as more snow and then rain pounded Juneau. Meanwhile, staff at the city’s emergency warming shelter for unhoused residents relocated operations three times in two days.
When the city issued evacuation advisories for high risk areas of town on Friday, it said the shelter along Thane Road was too close to historic avalanche paths to stay put, said St. Vincent de Paul Director Jennifer Skinner.
The warehouse the city and the nonprofit use for the shelter is right below the red zone on the city’s avalanche risk map.
“It was intense to realize that we were going to have to relocate our operations to, at that point, an undisclosed location,” she said. “And we were on standby.”
The shelter serves an average of 45 people who don’t have another place to sleep each night.
Shelter staff packed up everything they could — including a refrigerator — in an hour and a half. Skinner said she was preparing for an avalanche to prevent them from accessing the building ever again.
First, the city told them to move to the Marie Drake building between the high school and Harborview Elementary School.
“And we completely 100% reset there, and as we were finishing, we’re hearing the roof, and we’re hearing all these cracks and creaks and such,” Skinner said. “And so we contacted our city officials again and said, ‘Hey, is this safe?’ And he said, ‘You know what? Get out. Let’s err on the side of caution.’”
So warming shelter staff evacuated that building, too. They had to make a safety plan with the fire department to go back in and get all the equipment they’d moved in.
The city and Red Cross of Alaska has made Centennial Hall available for residents in avalanche slide zones.
But city Emergency Programs Manager Ryan O’Shaughnessy said the city wanted to avoid housing the two groups together, citing concerns over potential drug use and hygiene.
So the city identified Sít’ Eetí Shaanáx — Glacier Valley Elementary as the only available building for the warming shelter. The school had closed for part of the school week so crews could shovel snow off the roof.
With the help of a moving company, Skinner said they were able to set up at the school. They finished setting up an hour before the shelter opened at 9 p.m.
“So that was a huge success for us — we didn’t skip a beat,” she said. “Our patrons were not impacted at all by having to reset.”
The warming shelter operated out of the school for just one night, and 44 people came to stay.
Then, on Saturday, city officials determined the Thane warehouse to be safe enough for Skinner and her staff to move back in.
Some Juneau residents raised concerns on social media about temporarily housing the unhoused population in an elementary school.
City Manager Katie Koester spoke to some of those concerns at Monday’s Juneau Assembly meeting.
“We had a thorough inspection, a thorough cleaning of the facility,” she said. “But really for life safety of those residents, we had to make that decision, and we had to make that decision quickly.”
But Skinner said she mostly saw support from Juneau residents during the crisis.
“I can’t express my gratitude to community members and community businesses that are so willing to step in and step up when we have a hard time,” she said. “And help us problem solve and just be like ‘we got you.’”
The emergency warming shelter is once again operating out of its usual location in Thane, with transportation to and from the Glory Hall, which provides meals and other day services.
Avalanche risk remains high, and the city’s evacuation advisory is still in place for residents living in the Behrends slide path.