Marty Gillet was in his home in the White Cliff neighborhood when he said he heard something that sounded like a freight train.
“I heard this weird, screechy rumbling,” he said over the sirens and rain.
The landslide came down over the Third Avenue bypass and across First and Second Avenues, demolishing multiple houses and dragging a couple others with it.
Gillet said at first he thought there had been an earthquake. Then he saw the damage.
“Did you see all the poles down on Second Avenue? I could see them broken in half, hanging by the wires,” he said.
One of his neighbors rushed over to him.
“I was trying to call you to make sure you guys are okay!” she said
“I’m not in the house. I immediately got my raingear on,” Gillet responded. “I’ve been out here the whole time.”
Response crews worked to get people out of the houses caught in the immediate slide, stepping over downed power lines and debris. One first responder came out carrying a girl who was barefoot and injured.
Other crews cut power to the area and cleared the downed power lines so rescue efforts could continue safely.
Along the slide zone, people stood in the rain, trying to make sure their loved ones were okay.
“My John wasn’t answering. He’s on Third. You be careful, huh?” One woman said as she passed.
Response crews went door to door, telling residents in the vicinity that they needed to evacuate to the Baptist Church a few blocks away. Many of them rushed out of their houses with suitcases.
Across town, Ketchikan High School was preparing to take in the evacuees.
Up to 65 households were in the evacuation zone. The Baptist Church didn’t have power. So they housed evacuees until they could be taken to the emergency shelter at Kayhi. Principal Rick Dormer was setting up tables. He said that within hours, members of the community showed up with blankets, food, and supplies.
“These are community members or staff that have showed up with blankets, clothes, food, and coffee,” said Dormer. “Its less organized than you’d like but you can’t organize or plan for something like this.”
12 people stayed overnight at the shelter. The news came late in the evening. The slide had claimed one life and two others were hospitalized.
Jennifer Bergen was coordinating efforts for evacuees at the shelter. She said the donations kept coming.
“Lots of donations coming in. We have a little bit of everything,” she said.
The tables of the Kayhi solarium were covered in toiletries, feminine products, and clothing. Bergen said many more people evacuated from the slide and are staying in nearby hotels. She was working with the Emergency Operations Center to get supplies to them as well.
“Families are getting what they need: lots of places to sleep, shower, laundry facilities, basic necessities. I think that whenever you have a disaster, you still have pretty shocked individuals kind of processing that. And we’re not even 24 hours out yet, people are coming to terms with some loss,” said Bergen.
By Monday morning, the rain let up. Local and state geologists were on the scene trying to test the stability of the collapsed hillside. They want to determine if the slide area, as well as the slopes on either side of it, are at risk of further slides.
Ketchikan mayor Dave Kiffer said many residents, including him, were waking up to a new reality though. He said a slide like this has never happened before in Ketchikan.
“This is not something you see in Ketchikan. It’s hard to wrap your mind around that. I mean, day in and day out, we drive past these hills and we look up at the trees and the mountains and how lovely it is, and you just don’t think, ‘Well, that’s gonna come roaring down on you.’ And now you have to,” said Kiffer.
He said the state started developing a program to assess landslide risk in Southeast communities after the other deadly landslides in Haines, Wrangell, and Sitka in recent years. But after yesterday, and with the alarming frequency of fatal landslides, that process needs to be expedited.
“Whatever the pace that is, it’s got to pick up now,” Kiffer said of developing the assessment program.
The city and borough are waiting for geological testing to conclude before they begin serious clean-up efforts. It’s not clear as of Monday afternoon when evacuated residents will be able to return to their homes.
