From left, John Raasch, of Youth Advocates of Sitka; Marita Bailey, Amy Zanuzoski and Carol Berge, of Sitka Counseling and Prevention Services; and Parcae Soule, of SEARHC, spoke about counseling resources available to Sitkans. (Rachel Waldholz, KCAW)

CORRECTION: An earlier version of the story said that after the first free session, normal fees would apply. In fact, the agencies are committed to working with residents if further counseling is needed. 

As the city continues to cope with the aftermath of last week’s landslides, emergency responders had one key message on Thursday (8-27-15): take care of yourself, and make sure to ask for help if you need it.

To that end, several Sitka organizations are working together to offer counseling services to the community.

Youth Advocates of Sitka, Sitka Counseling and Prevention Services, and SEARHC are all offering free, confidential sessions.

John Raasch, the clinical director at Youth Advocates of Sitka,  said you don’t have to be a family member or first responder to be affected by recent events.

“One way to look at it is, if you’re experiencing something and you’re not sure why, but you have a hunch it has something to do with what you’re hearing about, or what you’ve witnessed, or even the work you’ve done a s a first responder, and you think that you don’t want to handle it alone, or just want to talk it out, confidential counseling can do that for you,” Raasch said. “It doesn’t mean you need to have a serious problem.”

The counselors said that in the aftermath of tragedy, people often experience not just grief, but anxiety, fear, anger, and even a sense of hypervigilance. (You can find a full list of common emotional and psychological reactions here.) Those reactions can come with symptoms like trouble sleeping or headaches; or the inability to relax, difficulty thinking clearly, and irritability or anger.

All of that is normal, Raasch said, and a counselor may be able to help.

“What [Sitkans] can expect is a safe place, in a confidential setting, where they’ll be able to talk about what they feel like they need to get off their chest,” Raasch said. “And they’ll be in the presence of someone whose sole purpose at that point in time is to listen to them, seek an understanding, and try to be helpful.”

Counseling is also available for kids — and Raasch says that children often show their reactions differently.

“Young people may be experiencing this a little bit differently, in that children oftentimes will experience what their parents are experiencing, but aren’t able to show or talk about what they’re going through,” Raasch said. “Being aware of your child’s behaviors and how they’re doing emotionally is going to be helpful to them, in that they are not going to be able to articulate clearly what they are going through. They’re just going to show you, through their behavior.”

To access the services, residents can call Sitka Counseling at 747-3636 and mention they are calling for Community Response Counseling. They can then schedule a free session at any of the three agencies.

But the counselors also stressed that there’s no time limit — if residents find they need a session three months, or six months, or a year from now, the service will still be available.

But Deputy Fire Chief Al Stevens says that nine days after heavy rain caused at least seven landslides in Sitka, it’s time for responders to downshift.

“My marching orders to everyone is, let’s return to normalcy. Let’s try and do that,” Stevens said Thursday morning. “So that’s what we’re doing. We’re scaling down the emergency operations center. We still have to stay active because we do have people on site still. But we’re scaling things down.”

The remains of the last slide victim were recovered on Tuesday.

Despite a weather front that brought rain to the region on Thursday afternoon, Stevens said the Kramer Avenue site is now fairly stable. He said he would not ask for voluntary evacuations from the neighborhoods below the landslide. The only evacuations still in effect are for three homes on Jacobs Circle, which have been without water or power since the slides.

Stevens also planned to demobilize a specialized Coast Guard unit, the Pacific Strike Team, which was using a pump to try to drain water out of the slide site. He said so far the pump had not been as effective as hoped.

Meanwhile, the city and Forest Service have re-opened all of the roads affected by last week’s landslides, with the exception of Blue Lake road, which remains closed to the public.

A Forest Service team has also reported several other major slides in the region around Sitka, including on Halleck Island in Nakwasina Sound; in Salisbury Sound; and at Deadman’s Reach in Peril Strait.

A screenshot of the Sitka Convention and Visitors Bureau website. The assembly has voted to dissolve the bureau. (Screenshot June 24, 2015)

The saga of Sitka’s Convention and Visitors Bureau continued Tuesday night (8-26-15), as the Assembly moved one step closer to fully dissolving the bureau and hiring an outside contractor to do its work — likely the Sitka Chamber of Commerce.

The Assembly was expected to vote on whether to award a contract to the Chamber, but the contract wasn’t finished by the Tuesday meeting.

Instead, assembly members voted to authorize city staff to secure any city assets as the bureau prepares to shut down.

City Administrator Mark Gorman told the Assembly that his decision not to grant a new contract to the existing visitors’ bureau — or SCVB — was solidified when he received a call from an investigator at the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development this month, notifying him that the bureau would be penalized for two “serious” workers’ compensation violations.

“In the course of that conversation, it further affirmed for me that there had been management issues as well as governance issues,” Gorman said. “And given that we are in transition, I think that it’s very important that we get in and make sure that obligations, liabilities, and assets of the City and Borough of Sitka are protected.”

That will mean taking control of the bureau’s bank accounts, for starters, Gorman said, and compiling an inventory of city-owned equipment and supplies.

SCVB Board president Evy Kinnear said she disagreed with the decision to dissolve the bureau.

“I’m angry that this is happening,” Kinnear said, adding that she thinks it has been handled unprofessionally. But, she said, the larger issue is the future of Sitka’s tourism industry.

“My husband said, and I have to agree with him, that most important is that this visitor industry remain a viable, strong economic force as it’s become in the town,” Kinnear said. “We can’t function without it. And we can’t function without its growth.”

For that reason, Kinnear said, the SCVB board and its current executive director, Tonia Rioux, would support the Assembly’s decision.

The diesel from the Jarvis Street Power Plant leaked into Sitka Sound through this storm water drain at Eagle Beach. (Rachel Waldholz, KCAW)

The Sitka Assembly on Tuesday (8-26-15) received an update on last week’s diesel spill at the city’s Jarvis Street Power Plant. Officials estimate that up to 2500 gallons of diesel were released into Sitka Sound when a fuel storage tank failed at the power station during the weekend of August 15 – 16.

City Administrator Mark Gorman introduced Sitka’s new Utility Director, Bryan Bertacchi — Bertacchi’s first day of work was the Sunday night of the spill.

And Bertacchi told the Assembly that investigators working for both the city and its insurer are still trying to figure out what caused it.

“The response is not yet deemed complete,” he said “We’re continuing the investigation, it’s ongoing into the root cause of what caused the spill, and further we’re really looking at what best practices can we put into place at the utility so we can avoid a reoccurrence of this problem in the future.”

Bertacchi said the incident command structure, which was set up to respond to the spill, was demobilized on August 21. But, he said, all of the agencies involved continue to monitor the situation, including the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, the Coast Guard and the National Park Service.

The city doesn’t know yet whether there will be any penalties or fines stemming from the spill. But Sitka will have to reimburse agencies like the Coast Guard for some of their costs. It’s not yet clear how much that will be.

Speaking with KCAW, Bertacchi said the tank that failed is one of two new tanks storing diesel at the Jarvis Street plant — but it’s part of a larger system of pipes and storage tanks that’s 35 years old.

Bertacchi said the Coast Guard now estimates that about 5,000 gallons of diesel could have evaporated during the two days that the fuel was essentially sitting in a giant pool under the sun — leaving up to 2500 gallons that likely leaked into the city storm drain system and eventually reached Sitka Sound.

The diesel recovered from the containment area has not yet been filtered and tested for use, but Bertacchi said the Jarvis Street plant will be able to generate power if needed — it’s Sitka’s backup power source, if transmission from the Blue Lake dam has to be interrupted. The city still has some diesel stored in a second tank, and has plans in place with local fuel suppliers in case of an emergency.

Sitka Police Lt. Lance Ewers speaks to volunteers and friends and family of the missing men at Grace Harbor Church on August 19, the day after Sitka was hit by a series of landslides. (Rachel Waldholz, KCAW)

At the first meeting of the Sitka Assembly since last week’s (8-18-15) landslides, city officials spoke emotionally about the loss of three local men — and said they had been overwhelmed by the response of city staff, volunteers, and ordinary citizens.

Downloadable audio

The meeting began with a moment of silence to honor the three men who died in the August 18 landslide. It was announced by assembly member Aaron Swanson.

Swanson: I ask that we take a moment of silence to honor the men we lost in last week’s landslide: Elmer Diaz, Ulises Diaz, and William Stortz. [[Silence]]

The assembly, city staff and members of the public stood and observed a full minute of silence. It was followed soon after by emotional testimony from Fire Chief Dave Miller.

“For the last week or more, the people of Sitka have been flat amazing,” Miller said. “They have gone far and above what I would ever have thought any community could ever have done.”

Miller spoke about the hundreds of people who volunteered to help with the search, or dropped off food; and he spoke of the thousands of dollars raised so far for the families of the three men and for those who were evacuated from their homes around the landslide.

“A disaster like this hopefully happens in a community once in a bajillion years, and hopefully I never see another one like this ever,” Miller said. “But I’ve, in my mind I’ve tried to write a letter to the editor, and what it would say. And I’ve been doing this since last Tuesday. I could never get past just, ‘Thanks.’ The list would be too far, and too long. The paper would double in size in one night with all the names and organizations, and everybody that donated time and effort and equipment and everything to make this work.”

While he couldn’t possibly thank everyone, Miller said, he gave special praise to Deputy Fire Chief Al Stevens, who has been running the day to day response and recovery effort. And he ticked off a host of local, state and federal agencies that have responded, including the Coast Guard, State Troopers, Forest Service and National Park Service. Of the Sitka Fire Department itself, Miller said, “I work with the greatest people in the world.”

But above all, he thanked regular Sitkans. “We may not see eye to eye on everything,” he said. “But when it comes right down to it, this community rocks.”

Speaking after Miller, City Administrator Mark Gorman stood to address the Assembly and audience.

“In working with the Tlingit people I learned that when you address people whom you hold in high regard, you stand,” Gorman said. “And tonight I hold this community in the highest regard.”

“We recovered William tonight,” Gorman said. William Stortz’s remains were recovered just before the meeting, at about 4:15 p.m. Tuesday. “We recovered the Diaz boys last week. Many remarkable moments over the past several days. One of the more powerful ones was last week when Mr. Diaz, in all his courage and all his dignity, crossed the still-settling slide area to comfort the Stortz family across the way, after he had lost his first son. His second son had yet to be discovered.”

The next day, Gorman said, he watched as the Stortz family did the same thing, walking over to comfort the Diaz family.

“The strength, the courage, the humility of this community has been remarkable,” he said. “This is a community that stands tall and comes together.”

SCVB director Tonia Rioux. (KCAW photo/Robert Woolsey)

The Sitka Assembly race is down to four candidates, for two open seats.

Sitka Convention and Visitors Bureau director Tonia Rioux withdrew from the race Friday (8-21-15). She says a combination of events in the last week means she needs to focus on her family in the next few months.

“Because of the way things worked out right now, I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing over the next couple months,” Rioux told KCAW. “Or that I’ll be able to focus my full attention to the office of an assembly member as required.”

But Rioux says she hopes to run in the future. And she says she hopes the candidates who are running will focus on affordability.

“I think one of the main things I’d like to see the Assembly pay attention to really, is the cost of living in Sitka,” Rioux said “And how it’s affecting families and younger people who love Sitka and want to make it their home, but are finding it increasingly challenging to afford to live there and afford to raise their families there.”

The four candidates still running for Assembly are current Deputy Mayor Matt Hunter; former mayoral candidate Orion Hughes-Knowles; former high school teacher and softball coach Bob Potrzuski; and write-in candidate John Welsh.

They are running for the seats currently occupied by Hunter and assembly member Michelle Putz, who is not running for reelection.

There are also five candidates running for two open seats on the Sitka School Board.

The Municipal Election will be held Tuesday, October 6.

Medical staff on the ship contacted the Coast Guard command center in Juneau at about 1 a.m. Monday. The ship was in southern Chatham Strait, near the town of Port Alexander, at the time of the call.

A helicopter crew from Air Station Sitka responded and hoisted the man aboard. He was then flown to Sitka and transferred to waiting emergency medical personnel. There was no further information about his status available by deadline for this story.

National Weather Service Meteorologist Joel Curtis (left) spoke with reporters Friday, along with DOT geologist Mitch McDonald and Deputy Fire Chief Al Stevens (right). (Robert Woolsey, KCAW)

Search teams in Sitka were racing the clock today (Friday 8-21-15), as they worked to find the third victim of Tuesday’s landslide before a new storm arrives tonight.

The National Weather Service is forecasting heavy rain and wind in Sitka this weekend.  Officials say the weather will make it unsafe for crews to work, as more rain could cause more slides.

DOT geologist Mitch McDonald is part of a team assessing the landslides around Sitka. Of the Kramer Avenue landslide, he said, “I would stay away from the area, if the rain intensity occurs as it’s predicted. That’s what I personally would do.” (Robert Woolsey, KCAW)

Meanwhile, officials today released the names of the two landslide victims whose bodies were recovered on Wednesday and Thursday. They were identified as Elmer and Ulises Diaz, ages 26 and 25. The two brothers were working on the Kramer Avenue house that was destroyed in Tuesday’s landslide.

Teams are still searching for the third man missing since Tuesday, 62-year-old William Stortz, Sitka’s building official.

Deputy Fire Chief Al Stevens, who is running the response, said this afternoon that recovery teams  had a “a very small window” in which to finish their work, “and it’s rapidly closing.”

“I intend to pull all crews out at approximately 8 o’clock tonight. If the rains come sooner, I’m going to pull them out sooner,” Stevens said. “We’re gonna pull all equipment, all crews out, obviously for safety reasons. We will probably stand down all operations throughout the weekend, until we reassess the weather and it allows us to get back in there and do whatever it is we need to do.”

There were several dog teams on site today from the Juneau-based search group SEADOGS. Dogs had called attention to an area on Thursday where officials hoped to find William Stortz. But Stevens said that as of Friday afternoon, dogs had also indicated several other sites, and crews are working at all of them. He said it isn’t easy going.

“As you can imagine, this is rather deep, with mud, water, logs,” Stevens said. “And you don’t just come in and scoop a big chunk out and call it good. You have to methodically and meticulously pull one piece out at a time, and we have spotters in there that have to look at what’s happening, and and this is why it’s taking so long.”

The National Weather Service is predicting up to three inches of rain in the next 36 to 48 hours. But meteorologist Joel Curtis said that’s still significantly less intense than the storm on Tuesday that caused at least six landslides around town.

“We got 2.57 inches at the airport in six hours,” Curtis said. “So we figure along the ridge [where the landslide began] it was much, much more. And I’ve actually got someone with a rain gauge that says, hey,  they got five inches. And I am guardedly trusting that reading that they got.”

Curtis said that because the rain is falling over a longer period of time, that may limit the risk of landslides this weekend.

Still, Department of Transportation geologist Mitch McDonald said there is “definitely still the risk” of more slides, and of more movement at the Kramer Avenue slide in particular.

“I would stay away from the area, if the rain intensity occurs as it’s predicted,” McDonald said. “That’s what I personally would do.”

The city has issued a voluntary evacuation request for Kramer Avenue and the neighborhoods below it, including Sand Dollar and Whale Watch Drives. Those residents were evacuated immediately after the landslide, before being allowed to return home on Wednesday.  An evacuation order remains in effect for Jacobs Circle.

A temporary shelter at Grace Harbor Church will be open for residents displaced by the voluntary evacuation.

The City has also called an emergency Assembly meeting for 8 p.m. tonight (Friday, 8-21-15) to consider a local disaster declaration ordinance. That meeting will take place in the 3rd floor conference room at City Hall.

Recovery crews halt work while a trained cadaver dog scents the site where the body of 62-year-old William Stortz is thought to be located. A previous dog alerted at the location of the green stake in the center of the image. (KCAW photo, Robert Woolsey)

Search crews have recovered two bodies from the Kramer Avenue landslide in Sitka.

One man remains missing but search dogs have called attention to a third location on the south side of the slide, where work focused this afternoon (Thurs, 8-20-15).

Officials hope to recover all three bodies before heavy rain predicted Friday.

Downloadable audio

Search crews were finally able to get to work in earnest late Wednesday and Thursday, after a period in which officials kept work on the site to a minimum out of fear of more landslides.

Crews found the first body at about 7:15 p.m. Wednesday, and recovered the second just before 1 p.m. Thursday, both on the north side of the slide. Both bodies were first found by dogs with the Juneau-based search team SEADOGS.

By Thursday afternoon, dogs had identified a third site, where crews hoped to find the body of 62-year-old William Stortz, Sitka’s building official. Stortz was inspecting drainage in the subdivision at the time of the landslide with two other men who managed to escape. Stortz and brothers Elmer and Ulises Diaz, ages 26 and 25, went missing in the Tuesday morning slide.

Sitka Mayor Mim McConnell was at the Kramer Avenue site for most of the day Thursday. She said it was a relief to family members to have some kind of closure.

“Obviously it’s good to know what’s happened to your loved one,” McConnell said. “And we can move on from hoping and wishing to just being able to grieve.”

The area around Kramer Avenue remains unstable. The slide moved downhill another two feet overnight. The city has posted workers on each side of the slide with airhorns, to signal an evacuation if any additional movement is detected. But McConnell said crews were just happy to be able to work.

“I think they feel the way I do,” McConnell said. “It’s a huge relief, and I know so many of the volunteers and people working have been frustrated because they couldn’t do anything initially. And so it’s just been a relief to be able to get in there and get to work and get going.”

Sunshine broke through for much of the day on Thursday. As the clouds lifted it was possible to see the path of the landslide above Kramer Avenue, where it cut a muddy swath down the hillside. A team of geologists brought in to assess the slide estimated that it started about 1400 feet up Harbor Mountain, or about 1000 feet above Kramer Avenue, where it wiped out one home and damaged another.

Searchers hoped to recover all three bodies before more rain predicted for Friday.

The National Weather Service is calling for two to three inches of rain Friday night, and gusty winds. But meteorologist Joel Curtis said this storm will be less intense, with a limited risk of more slides.   

“What’s different about this event is that it’s going to be spread out over much more time than the event that caused our mudslides and landslides around here,” Curtis said.

Officials have identified at least six landslides around Sitka caused by Tuesday’s heavy rain,  including slides on the Blue Lake Road that are blocking access to Sitka’s main hydroelectric dam; and washouts on the Green Lake Road, on the way to the city’s other hydro dam.

Gov. Bill Walker (right) and Sitka Mayor Mim McConnell visited the site of the Kramer Avenue landslide on Wednesday, August 19. (Rachel Waldholz, KCAW)

Governor Bill Walker was in Sitka today (Wednesday, 8-19-15) to assess the damage from a series of landslides that hit the city after heavy rains yesterday. He also met with the families of three people missing since Tuesday morning.

Meanwhile, the search for those three men was proceeding slowly, hampered by fears of further landslides.

Downloadable audio

The Kramer Avenue landslide on Tuesday wiped out a house and much of the road. Three people are missing and presumed dead. (Rachel Waldholz, KCAW)

Gov. Walker arrived in Sitka early Wednesday morning and flew over the affected areas in a Coast Guard helicopter.

But, he said, it wasn’t until he was standing at the edge of the Kramer Avenue landslide –where trees are stacked fifteen feet high and there’s a blank space on the hillside where a house used to be — that the scale of destruction came home to him.

“I mean, the size of the logs…” Walker said. “They showed me a picture of the house before. I mean it was a substantial, significant sized house…The devastation is just amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

Three men are missing and presumed dead after a river of mud and debris wiped out a house and much of the road on Kramer Avenue, a new neighborhood about three miles from downtown Sitka. Walker said it reminded him of the scene in Valdez after the 1964 earthquake, and said he was “overwhelmed.”

“I’ve prided myself, I’ve been governor about nine months now. I’ve prided myself by saying I’ve never had a bad day,” Walker said. “Well, I can’t say that anymore. This is a really tough day.”

The Kramer Avenue landslide buried part of a truck on Tuesday. (Rachel Waldholz, KCAW)

Walker also met with the families of the missing men. All three were involved in construction in the neighborhood. William Stortz, age 62, is Sitka’s building official. He was inspecting the site on Tuesday morning. Brothers Ulises and Elmer Diaz, ages 25 and 26, were working on one of the houses.

Meeting with family and friends of the Diaz brothers at Sitka’s Grace Harbor Church, Walker said he shares their frustration that search efforts aren’t happening faster. The area around Kramer Avenue remains unstable, and search teams have been held up by concerns about more landslides.

During a news conference with the governor at Sitka’s Fire Hall, City Administrator Mark Gorman choked up as he spoke about the three missing men — and about Sitka’s response. Hundreds of Sitkans have signed up to volunteer in the search, or have dropped off food for the responders and for families evacuated from their homes.

“And what I found in the last 24 hours is heart-wrenching and it’s about community.,” Gorman said. “William is a friend of many years, family, and a colleague. The Diaz boys grew up with my sons. And this is what this is about today. It’s about hurt and caring in our community. And I extend my sympathy to all the families and neighbors and friends. We are hurting collectively today.”

Gorman was echoed by Fire Chief Dave Miller. Miller said he’s worked with the Sitka Fire Department for about 28 years. “And I think yesterday was one of the hardest days of my life,” Miller said, pausing to regain his composure. “When I had to talk to those family members and say, I am so sorry. First for what happened, and then that we are not allowing those teams to go in and start looking for your family members. The thing that we have to worry about is the safety of all the others, too. The safety of the people who are going to go in there and do that, look for their [family] members.”

Meanwhile, Sitka Mayor Mim McConnell said she’s not yet ready to give up hope.

“And that’s the important thing that I think a lot of us need to keep in mind,” McConnell said.  “Is that, miracles do happen. And there are family members and friends that are hanging onto that, and I support that. You just never know. So we’re hopeful. And I’m going to stay that way until it doesn’t make sense.”

Sitka has requested that the governor declare a state of emergency, which would open up access to state funds for the response. Walker said the request is his staff’s top priority, and would be answered as soon as possible.