Could an arcane law help land owners affected by the December disaster?

Wendie Marriott and Bern Savikko’s Beach Road cabin was leveled by the December landslide. “It was smack dab in the middle of the slide,” Marriott said. Now “it’s a pile of boulders and tree stumps and mud and rock and debris… Everything is just gone.”

But Marriott, who lives mostly in Juneau, suspects a state law that hasn’t been invoked in three decades might entitle her and Savikko—and other Haines residents—to new land.

Marriott and…