Beach Road resident Art Woodard stands in his doorway as he moves back into his home which lost power after the December landslide. Electricity was restored to the neighborhood last week.
Last week electricity was restored to the last of the Beach Road houses that had been cut off from power since the December landslide that killed two people and destroyed homes.
For eight months, Art and Dawn Woodard have been living at the Covenant Life Center, unable to return to their house near the Battery Point trailhead. Finally, they are moving back home.
“It’s (been) a long time. It’s finally happened. It’s really a relief to be back,” Art Woodard, 77, said.
With the help of friends, the Woodards, who have lived on Beach Road for 20 years, are in the process of making their house livable again: airing out furniture, painting the walls and expunging mold and mildew that accrued while the couple was gone and the house didn’t have heating. They plan to permanently move back next week.
The road to the Battery Point trailhead will remain closed to the public. Alaska Power and Telephone (AP&T) waited to reinstall service until the Haines Borough had cleared debris from the road. Although the road has been excavated, Mayor Doug Olerud said it will stay closed to all except neighborhood residents and essential service workers because the area is still considered hazardous. The borough will wait to open the road until a state-commissioned geotechnical survey concludes.
The consulting firm Landslide Technologies finished its surface investigation in July and plans to collect subsurface data this fall. Depending on weather, a preliminary report could be released this winter, said Alaska Department of Transportation geotechnical engineer Travis Eckhoff. Monitoring would continue for a year after that.
AP&T is still working to restore internet access to the Beach Road neighborhood, according to Haines power operation manager Lance Caldwell, who said residents can expect internet service by the middle or end of next week.
Even with power and internet back, some Beach Road homeowners are hesitant to return. Todd and Amber Winkel, whose house and business is a few lots from the slide area, have been living out of town with relatives. “It’s going to take a long time to decide if we can go back,” said Amber Winkel. “Our property value just plummeted and we had no control over that.”
Dennis Franks has no plans to return to his home in the red zone near the slide. Franks, 77, and his wife, Kathleen, 78, who have lived on Beach Road since 1997, recently closed on a new house in town. He said electricity will help him clean up the property and repair any damage that occurred while the house lacked heating.
For Steve Wishstar, whose home was 530 feet from being swept away, electricity won’t change much. “It’s the crack causing the problems,” Wishstar said, referring to the fractured hillside above his home that officials worry threatens another slide. Although Wishstar won’t move back to Beach Road, he said he’s happy for his neighbors who got power “so they can live in their homes gracefully. “
Other residents who live further from the slide, like Chuck Hollenbeck, a snowbird, bought generators to power their homes before AP&T restored power. Hollenbeck said he has spent more than $3,000 on supplies and equipment to keep his home habitable.
Hollenbeck said he is grateful to have power back but was disappointed about the delay. “It’s crazy it took this long. I don’t know what the hell else to say.”