UPDATE 6 p.m. 3/21/2025: Tongass Avenue will remain blocked overnight following Thursday’s rockslide near Wolfe Point. The Ketchikan Emergency Operations Center said in a press release Friday evening that crews will continue removing debris over the weekend. State geologists remain on-site assessing the stability of the slope.
“The debris pile is like a giant, rocky game of Jenga,” Alaska Department of Transportation landslide expert Travis Eckhoff said in a prepared statement. “Crews must strategically remove the material supporting these boulders to prevent them from falling onto workers or impacting adjacent power lines.”
Regional tour company Allen Marine Tours is shuttling trapped residents and workday commuters across the slide area with a tour boat every hour. The service is going back and forth between Taquan on the south side of the slide to The Ketch on the north side. According to borough and city officials, that water taxi service will continue tonight, with the final shuttle departing from the south side of the slide at 9:15 p.m. and the last return trip from the north side will be at 9:45 p.m.
The First City Players also announced that they are canceling the opening weekend of their stage production of “The Crucible” by Arthur Miller. The show’s debut was scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday evening at the Kayhi Auditorium with consecutive performances on Saturday and Sunday. Shows remain scheduled for next weekend.
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UPDATE Friday 3/21/2025 – 10 a.m.: The Alaska Department of Transportation and regional construction company SECON began clearing debris from the Wolfe Point landslide Friday morning, according to a joint statement from Ketchikan city and borough officials. SECON said in a press release that additional landslide experts from around the state arrived Friday morning to provide continued assessment during the debris removal process and initial cleanup efforts are focused on the north side of the slide area.
It is currently unclear how long it will take to make Tongass Avenue passable.
The Ketchikan Emergency Operations Center is urging boaters to avoid the Wolfe Point area.
As of 7 a.m. Friday morning, Allen Marine Tours was operating a water taxi to transport stranded people and work commuters across the slide zone. According to the Ketchikan Emergency Operations Center, a shuttle bus service is operating from the Walmart parking lot on the north end of the slide area to The Ketch where the water taxi is departing from. On the south end of the slide, officials are urging residents to park at the Taquan Air or Alaska Marine Highway System lots if utilizing the temporary ferry service.
The Federal Aviation Administration has restricted all non-essential aircraft and drones within a half-mile of the Wolfe Point landslide until further notice, saying that unauthorized flights in the area could pose a risk to response efforts.
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UPDATE Thursday 3/20/2025 – 8 p.m.: The Alaska Department of Transportation and the Ketchikan Emergency Operations Center have decided to wait until the morning to begin removing debris from the landslide near Wolfe Point, citing safety concerns.
Ketchikan was seeing heavy rains going into Thursday evening and that rain was expected to continue until the morning. The Ketchikan City and Borough said in a press release that there was concern that large rocks in the slide zone could shift overnight. State geologists are expected to do another site assessment at 6:30 a.m. before beginning cleanup.
The borough and city mayors signed a joint disaster declaration for the landslide. The declaration was ratified by the Ketchikan City Council at their regular meeting Thursday night.
“Our major concerns are we have several large boulders that are going to come down,” Ketchikan Fire Chief Rick Hines told the city council during the meeting about why they suspended clean up efforts until the morning.
Hines said the slide nearly took out a nearby electrical pole which could’ve disrupted power service to residents north of the slide.
“The guard rail protected the electrical service to the north end of the island with the initial slide,” he said. “What we run into now is those big boulders are going to come down. It’s taking the time to take them down so we don’t disrupt the power service, which could be quite a big deal.”
The Ketchikan Gateway Borough School district closed the island’s schools on Friday in light of the landslide. According to Hines, schoolchildren trapped on either side of the slide are able to shelter overnight at their respective schools under the supervision of teachers.
Temporary shelter services are also available through area churches. City and borough officials urged displaced residents to contact resident Sarah Harney at sarah@stacalaska.net.
According to Hines, the northern portion of the airport ferry parking lot is closed until further notice. He said it is being used as a staging area for helicopters in the event of a medical evacuation.
Peacehealth Ketchikan Medical Center, the island’s only hospital, is south of the slide zone. Hines said they are able to continue emergency medical services to the north end of the island.
“We have already completed one EMS medical call within the city north of the landslide,” Hines said, adding that the patient was treated by the North Tongass Fire Department before being flown by helicopter to an ambulance on the other side of the slide zone. “We’ve also made arrangements with the U.S. Coast Guard in the evening time to make sure those operations continue.”
Hines said all blasting efforts along the hillside for DOT’s ongoing stability project have been suspended.
“There is still an area that is north of the slide area that’s going to have to be assessed for stability, and it may or may have to be brought down while the road is still closed,” said Hines.
The fire chief expressed gratitude that no one was hurt in the slide.
“A couple things worked in our favor today. They were doing paving work there. We had flaggers there, and there was nobody going past when the slide occurred, except some SECON workers that probably had to go change their pants. You know, I mean, it was probably a pretty scary thing to be that close knowing that the outcome would have been really bad for those individuals,” Hines said.
When asked when the road could be open again, Hines responded that the cleanup has to be slow and methodical and the road will reopen “when it is safe to do so.”
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ORIGINAL: A rockslide near Ketchikan on Thursday morning has blocked the island’s main road, leaving people who live north of the slide cut off from the city and its airport. It’s not clear when the road will be open again, but city and borough officials are urging residents to make plans for an extended closure.
“We understand how frustrating it is,” said Alaska Department of Transportation spokesman Sam Dapcevich. “It’s divided the community literally, and we’re hoping to get it reopened as soon as possible, so that people can get where they need to go.”
The slide came down at 10:55 a.m. near Wolfe Point just north of the airport ferry terminal, completely blocking Tongass Avenue. SECON, a construction company contracted by the Transportation Department, has been doing blasting in recent days along the hillside where the slide occurred as part of a hazard mitigation project to improve the slope’s stability.
Dapcevich said it’s too early to say if that caused the slide.
“I do know that the construction work at that area was to mitigate the hazards that already existed. So there’s been rock slides there in the past, and that’s why they’re working there,” Dapcevich said.
SECON spokeswoman Marianne Kordowski directed questions to the Transportation Department.
City and borough officials said in a press release that they can’t begin clearing the road until state landslide experts can assess the stability of the hillside. They are expected to arrive around 5p.m. Thursday evening.
But Dapcevich said Department of Transportation geological engineers have already begun the assessment while they’re in transit.
“They just want to make sure that the risk is low of more material coming down before they start sending people in there,” he said.
For now, Allen Marine Tours is shuttling trapped residents across the slide area with a tour boat, which is going back and forth between Taquan on the south side of the slide to The Ketch on the north side. To use the free service, call 907-228-4635.
There are two fire stations north of the slide, but the island’s only hospital is south of the slide. Officials say they have a workaround in place to transport hospital patients across the slide zone.
Borough transit services are suspended for areas north of the slide.
The state Department of Transportation wrote on social media that the slide location is “complex and unsafe,” but that they would work to clear a single lane for emergency vehicles once geologists give the OK.
The city and borough has launched a joint emergency operations center, similar to last August’s fatal landslide in the White Cliff neighborhood. Emergency responders are currently setting up lights in preparation to work through the night.
