Experts: Local plans are key in landslide policy
- Daily Sitka Sentinel
- 21 hours ago
- 9 min read
By Andrea Burtzel
Daily Sitka Sentinel
Community members, scientists, tribal representatives and government officials from across Southeast Alaska met in Sitka Tuesday and Wednesday for an event focused on landslide planning, response and recovery.
Over the two days of the Southeast Alaska Landslide Information and Preparedness Partnership (SLIPP) conference, speakers shared research, case studies and planning strategies, while repeatedly stressing the importance of coordination among local communities, tribes, scientists and government agencies when preparing for landslides and other natural hazards.
Recent landslides across Southeast Alaska have underscored the risks.
In November 2023, six people — including a family of five — were killed when a landslide destroyed two homes in Wrangell following intense rainfall. In Ketchikan, a landslide in 2024 killed one person, injured three others and destroyed multiple homes. In December 2020, two people were killed in a landslide in Haines, and in 2015 three Sitkans died when a slope collapsed above a subdivision under construction.
Landslides are a frequent natural occurrence across the region. During the conference a U.S. Forest Service speaker noted that the Tongass National Forest has an average of about 100 landslides each year.
Shawna Hotch, a member of the Chilkat Indian Village of Klukwan, told how the community is working to better understand and plan for landslide risks through the development of a landslide hazards program.
Klukwan is about 22 miles northwest of Haines along the Chilkat River near the Haines Highway.
“Klukwan translates from Tlingit to English as ‘the eternal village’. It is the last remaining village of the Chilkat territory,” Hotch said. “I say this because how we plan for the landslides is directly linked to our identity as Tlingit people and as stewards of these lands.”
Hotch said her early memories of Klukwan include seeing first-hand impacts of landslides.
“My first memories of Klukwan were my parents working all summer scooping silt out from underneath my grandmother's house, because it went right through her house into my auntie's,” she said. “I later learned that they had been awarded a FEMA grant, helping with repairs to her house.”
In 2018, the Chilkat Indian Village Tribal Council began a planning process that declared climate planning and geohazard risks are a tribal priority, with the goal of reducing threats to human life and critical infrastructure on traditional lands.
“None of this would have happened if we didn't have leadership guiding this process,” Hotch said. “The administration sought out funding to assist the tribe in adapting to the ever-changing climate, focusing on building a more resilient food system and stronger critical infrastructure.”
Hotch said building a strong foundation was a critical step in developing a climate plan that would lead to real results.
“One of the actions we identified early on was addressing geohazards,” she said. “We realized we needed strong partnerships, particularly with technical experts who could help us better understand, measure and communicate the climate risks we were seeing, and that's what led us to partner with the KUTÍ (the Tlingit word for weather) project.”
Project KUTÍ is a five-year, $5 million National Science Foundation initiative led by the Sitka Sound Science Center and regional partners. The project aims to develop community-based systems that monitor extreme weather and provide warnings for hazards such as flooding, avalanches and landslides across Southeast Alaska.
“The KUTÍ partnership helped us develop a relationship with researchers, agencies and other organizations working on this,” Hotch said. “It helped equip the tribe with information needed to make informed decisions and actively participate.
Adelaide “Di” Johnson, a hydrologist and community collaborator, spoke about her work with communities in Southeast Alaska, and how these efforts relate to other communities facing landslide risk.
“In 2006 I was asked to do work with the Mitkof Homeowners Association. The Petersburg area homeowners group wanted us to get involved and help make the community safer,” Johnson said. “But with the Forest Service at that point, working with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, they said, ‘that's maybe a little political. Don't do it.’”
Johnson said similar concerns surfaced again in 2010 when she began working with the Alaska Department of Natural Resources on a panel looking at slope stability in populated areas.
“It was a little too political,” she said.
That began to change after the 2015 landslide that claimed three lives in Sitka.
“Lisa Busch [now retired executive director at Sitka Sound Science Center] stepped up to the plate and changed the way we interact with communities,” Johnson said. “She got communities involved, and there was a shift from that time on.”
Johnson said the work now follows a four-part approach: sharing information through community gatherings, supporting local environmental measurements, building tools for community resilience and creating opportunities for youth.
One example is through the Alaska Youth Stewards Program, which provides field-based workforce training for high school students.
“They’re out looking at hillsides and learning to recognize characteristics of unstable slopes, measuring stream cross-sections, observing erosion and deposition, and planting seedlings of yellow cedar and other culturally important species,” Johnson said.
Stephen McKay, a soil scientist with the U.S. Forest Service, opened his talk by saying the Tongass National Forest sees at least 100 landslides per year on average.
McKay said landslides can affect both communities and the surrounding landscape.
"They can impact fish streams. People recreate on lands that can be affected by slides, so it's important to think about these two together,” he said.
As one example, McKay pointed out Blakewell Lake, southeast of Ketchikan.
“The fish in the stream require a fish pass to access the lake and the spawning grounds,” McKay said. “In the same area there are three different types of movement: a debris flow, a hillslope creek gradually overtaking the fish pass, and rockfall occurring nearby. There’s a lot of issues, and this isn't the only place where that happens.”
Quinn Aboudara with the U.S. Forest Service and natural resources manager for the Alaska Native corporation Shaan Seet Inc., said landslides are a natural part of Alaska’s landscape.
“They have been here far longer than any of us can imagine,” he said.
He said landslides can also create opportunities for restoration; in some cases slides can help create or improve salmon habitat and change how water moves across the landscape.
“As the climate changes, we want a resilient landscape and resilient salmon populations,” he said. “We can use our knowledge of restoration practices to work with landslides in ways that support salmon habitat and community buy-in.”
Aboudara said that even though communities may not fully understand the science behind landslides, it is deeply personal for them.
“We understand when it's raining, blowing and things are coming down the hill, you shouldn't go outside. We also need to address these problems. It is not a matter of if a catastrophic landslide strikes your community, it is a matter of when,” he said. “It’s personal, it’s all of us. Every person here has been affected by a landslide in some way, shape or form. We all worry about these things, so let's start planning on ways to keep our communities safe.”
Mary Schoenfeldt, of Marysville, Washington, who describes herself as a “repurposed” emergency manager, spoke about the trauma landslides can cause for individuals and communities.
“When we're talking about landslides and other kinds of disasters, there is traumatic loss,” she said. “We lose property, people, possessions, our livelihood and our sense of safety.”
Schoenfeldt does contract work with the FEMA Emergency Management Institute and serves as a public education coordinator for the Green Cross of Traumatology, helping communities prepare for and respond to disasters.
She said disasters can have lasting mental health impacts on communities.
“When something distressing happens to us, we're often afraid it's going to happen again,” she said. “It’s unusual, in my experience, that we put disaster response and mental health together, but that’s what we need to do.”
Schoenfeldt said disasters often trigger predictable psychological and physical stress responses, including anger, anxiety, blame and changes in behavior. She added that these reactions can affect individuals, emergency response teams and entire communities in the aftermath of a disaster.
“The connection we have with our communities now — through education, preparedness and conversations — gives us a better chance,” she said. “Our town, our community, our family unit, our workplace is only as healthy as the people in it.”
She said community gatherings can play an important role in recovery and resilience.
“One of the most powerful things we can do is simply bring people together,” she said. “If I ever write another book, the title will be ‘The Power of Potluck,’ because everybody brings something to the community gathering.”
Schoenfeldt said some communities are also incorporating psychological first aid into disaster response efforts, helping neighbors support one another emotionally after traumatic events. She said she hopes to see similar networks develop across Southeast Alaska, where communities could provide mutual aid and support following disasters.
Researchers have also developed tools to help residents monitor landslide risk. The Sitka Landslide Risk Dashboard, hosted by the Sitka Sound Science Center, uses rainfall data from the National Weather Service and historical landslide records to estimate the likelihood of landslides. The web-based dashboard categorizes conditions as low, medium or high risk and provides recommended actions to help residents prepare during periods of heavy rainfall. The dashboard can be accessed at sitkalandslide.org.
Alisha Sell, first responder education coordinator for Tlingit & Haida Public Safety, spoke about emergency planning efforts underway through a tribal Homeland Security grant. Part of that work includes helping develop SCERP, or small community emergency response plans.
Sell outlined the five stages of emergency management: prevention, mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery.
“We always want to start with prevention, because if we can prevent that disaster from happening — yes, please,” Sell said.
When prevention isn’t possible, mitigation efforts aim to reduce the impact of an emergency. As an example, Sell pointed to the seasonal flooding that threatens neighborhoods in Juneau, an annual occurrence in outlying parts of the capital city.
“Most of us are familiar with the flood in Juneau last year,” she said. “The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers installed Hesco barriers along the riverbank, which prevented a large amount of flooding.”
Sell said more than 400 homes were damaged by the 2024 flood, while about 38 homes were affected during the 2025 flood, after the barriers were installed.
“That was a mitigation effort,” she said. “Those Hesco barriers helped prevent the damage from being as bad as it could have been.”
Preparedness helps communities respond when disasters do occur.
“The first step is asking ‘OK, it happened — now what?’”
Sell said response refers to the immediate action taken to protect life and reduce economic loss, while recovery focuses on helping communities rebuild and move forward after a disaster.
“We’re not always going to return to the exact normal of pre-disaster,” Sell said. “But recovery is about getting as close as we can.”
Sell also emphasized the importance of coordination between tribal governments and the state during emergencies.
“We work together frequently and we’re very thankful to have a phenomenal partnership with the state,” she said. “At the same time, tribes are often able to respond to smaller incidents on their own.”
Sells said tribal efforts also consider cultural and historical sites, including sacred grounds that may be affected by the disasters.
“Strong tribal and state relationships ensure that response, recovery planning and resource coordination can move forward together,” said Rhonda Butler, employee services coordinator for Tlingit & Haida Public Safety. “When responding to an incident, we don’t just go and help ourselves. Local tribes call on us when there’s an emergency.”
Michael Lucio, geological hazard specialist with the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, spoke about statewide hazard trends, which he said have continued to increase.
“Every disaster is unique and the scale is always different,” Lucio said. “You can have the smallest of disasters, something as simple as a water freeze-up, but in a small community, losing a critical lifeline is a disaster.”
Lucio said Alaska’s geography and remote communities make emergency management especially complex.
“Anywhere in the state can be a disaster here, and that’s one of the things that makes Alaska unique,” he said. “We have the capability to declare disasters at the state level, manage them at the state level, and never elevate them to the federal level.”
Lucio said Southeast Alaska has also seen increasing impacts from atmospheric rivers and slope instability, which contribute to landslides, mudslides and other hazards.
“We're extremely happy to work with our tribal partners,” said Butler. “Instead of having just one person in charge, we have multiple people working together.”
Butler said the recent Juneau flood response showed how that coordination works.
“For the Juneau flood this year we had Sabrina Grubitz from the tribe, Ryan O’Shaughnessy from the City and Borough of Juneau, and Captain Stanley Fields from the Coast Guard,” she said. “The three of them worked together under a joint Incident Command System.”
Lucio also emphasized the importance of preparedness in small communities.
“Can your JV team handle a varsity game?” he said. “Sometimes the person everyone expects to respond to an emergency isn’t there. They may be in Anchorage or somewhere else, and something happens at home.”
That is one reason the state promotes SCERPs, small community emergency response plans.
The plans are typically printed as red flip charts placed in several locations throughout a community so residents can quickly reference them during emergencies.
“SCERP gives a running game plan of what to do during a community disaster, and that is a uniquely Alaska product,” Lucio said. “Many communities are not within a borough or organized government, so when something bad happens, they are the first line of defense.”
