We own a home past the Beach Road landslide. We have closely followed the decision-making affecting the ongoing closure of the road.
This started with computer modelling by DGGS of possible failure of a “block” of material at the head of the slide path. We have been given the assumptions that went into this modelling, but these assumptions were a worst-case scenario. The possible outcomes from the model included a future major landslide. This future slide was by no means certain or even likely.
Somewhere someone decided that this all constituted an “imminent” danger of a “catastrophic landslide,” and Beach Road has remained closed based on this interpretation.
We are now informed by Landslide Technologies that failure of this block is a “low- to moderate-risk event with moderate likelihood of occurrence.” Landslide Technologies predicts no high-risk events with high likelihood of occurrence. The only high-risk event they discuss is reactivation of the existing slide material, and they deem the likelihood of this to be low.
I want to point out that this much-more-moderate potential of risk for Beach Road has been the educated opinion of many Beach Road residents all along. And most of Haines is at moderate risk of various geologic problems, but we don’t close all of Haines. And we don’t close Anchorage just because there is a low likelihood (but actually a long-term certainty!) of another megathrust earthquake.
Frankly this is getting ridiculous. Fix the damn road and put in power. Enough said.
Michael and Maggie Balise