Lauren Rutland is the new Haines Dolphins swim coach. She and husband Ryan Rutland moved to Haines from outside Saginaw, Texas, with their three dogs, two cats and two children, Carson, 5, and Archer, 4. Ryan was recently hired as a Haines Borough Police Department officer. Before moving to Haines, Lauren was doing graphic design work in […]
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Posted inLetters to the Editor
Potential AIDEA funding needs much scrutiny
Before our local government commits our community to jumping into bed with the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority (AIDEA) to build a new dock and ore terminal on Lutak Inlet, there are many questions to be answered and public involvement that must take place. AIDEA has an ore terminal that it owns in Skagway, just 15 […]
Posted inNews
2020: Pandemic, natural disaster and upheaval
As I sat down to write the 2020 Year in Review, I thought: “I don’t want to relive this year, nor should anyone else.” But tradition dictates an annual recap, which if left unwritten, would end my positive relationship with CVN bookkeeper Jane Pascoe. Plus, the newspaper is a weekly black hole of white space […]
Posted inNews, Public Safety
What can Haines learn from Sitka’s deadly landslide?
How one Southeast town is working toward a landslide warning system On Aug. 18, 2015 more than 40 landslides fell across Baranof and Chichagof Islands. The largest slide destroyed homes and killed three men in Sitka. Similar to Haines, rapid, heavy rains overwhelmed and saturated the soil structure. Within days of the slides, a group […]
Posted inNews
Messages of support and donations pour into Chilkat Valley
Hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations and supplies have entered Haines in the wake of the Dec. 2 landslide, including roughly $450,000 raised by seven Gofundme accounts, some for specific residents and others for the general recovery effort. The largest campaign, “Haines, Alaska Disaster Relief,” raised $218,950 in the eight days immediately following the […]
Posted inNews
EOC opens southernmost part of Beach Road
Residents at the southernmost end of Beach Road can return home after state geologists downgraded the area from a mandatory evacuation zone to a site to “monitor for future concern.” The determination was made based on computer modeling of potential slide paths if the fractured rock at the top of the Beach Road slide area […]
Posted inNews, Housing
Evacuees worry about homes and when they will be able to return safely
After the Dec. 2 Beach Road landslide, more than 50 Haines residents were displaced when neighborhoods including Beach Road and the Piedad-Cathedral View area were evacuated due to landslide risk. On Saturday, additional residents elected to evacuate after an area stretching from Piedad to Picture Point was advised to prepare for a possible evacuation. “I […]
Posted inNews
Upper Mount Riley Road houses evacuated based on available data
Piedad-Cathedral View evacuation lifted Houses on upper Mount Riley Road are now under mandatory evacuation. On Tuesday, the Haines Borough Emergency Operations Center (EOC) refined landslide areas of concern based on data collected by state geologists and crowdsourced from residents over the past few days. The EOC has created three categories to describe landslide risk: “be prepared,” […]
Posted inNews
Governor makes state assistance available for infrastructure repairs
State and federal assistance for homeowners rebuilding remains uncertain On Dec. 5, Gov. Mike Dunleavy signed a disaster declaration for Southeast Alaska after flooding and landslides damaged roads, public facilities and private property from Ketchikan to Haines. The disaster declaration will make state assistance available for public infrastructure repairs and is the first step in […]
Posted inNews, Public Safety
Floods, slides pummel Haines, rebuilding begins
The skies cleared Wednesday after a week of rain that kept instabilities in the landscape active and a ground search for missing residents on standby. After days marked by uncertainty, loss and grief, some of the roughly 50 displaced families moved back home. The disaster, caused by record-setting rainfall that began last Tuesday, was precipitated […]