Light pours from the entrance of the Halsingland Hotel on Saturday, Dec. 5, 2020, in Haines, Alaska. The hotel has been closed, but the owners decided to open some rooms for added space as all of the town’s hotel rooms are full with evacuees and workers who have come to Haines to search for missing residents and help repair damage from flooding and landslides. (Photo by Rashah McChesney/KTOO)
Some fifty families are displaced in Haines due to mudslides and evacuations. Every hotel in town was full over the weekend. Except for one: the 60-room Hotel Halsingland, closed for the last year and a half and currently on the market.
Rain turned to snow Saturday afternoon in Haines, but that didn’t deter dozens of volunteers and former employees from opening the century-old hotel in the dead of winter. They chopped wood. They dusted, disinfected, and vacuumed. They fluffed pillows.
“Today has been hectic,” said Gina Randles. She sits at the front desk organizing to-do lists while a volunteer chops wood to feed the stove that warms the lobby.
“It has been amazing, though. It’s been really wonderful. We decided we were going to open up some of the buildings here to try and get people in so that they’ve got places to stay. And I put the word out that I needed volunteers and an army showed up.”
The hotel is typically open seasonally for tourists. Owner Jeff Butcher is in the lower-48, but he and his wife plan to be in Haines on the next ferry, scheduled to arrive Tuesday.
“We didn’t open this summer, but I guess we’re opening this winter instead,” said.
Butcher says he is working directly with the borough Emergency Operations Center rather than opening the reservation line directly. But if there is an emergency need, he says don’t hesitate to call.
“I must say our hearts and thoughts and prayers go out to everyone in Haines. This is pretty, pretty terrible. And we’re happy to do what we can to help. And we do have resources. And if someone thinks that we can be of assistance in another way, feel free to contact me. We’re glad to help wherever we can. And however we can,” said Butcher.
The rooms were guest ready by mid-afternoon, but a few maintenance volunteers worked into the evening. Under the guidance of a long-time former employee, volunteer Michael Calloway has been lending a hand.
“Yeah, we’ve been holding Alex there by the skirt tail,” he said.
“He’s been guiding us around on what to how to get this place [running].”
He and Nolan Woodard helped coax the hundred year old hotel’s plumbing and heating to life. Woodard works as a carpenter, so he says he’s been careful to ask for help so he doesn’t break anything.
“Just kind of helpin’ and trying to give support to the people who actually know what’s going on and gather up some crews that are just, you know, hammer swingin’ dudes that are ready to help and fix and just kind of be there if we could be supportive.”
He says he feels pretty luck his own home is out of evacuation zones, so he’s ready to pitch in where needed. Walks through the old building’s maze like halls and points out one restroom that’s a particular challenge.
“This is the furthest point from the boiler, this room is, so we’ve been, like, basically, we turn the water on downstairs real slowly, filling the system, and then we’ve just been going through and slowly opening valves trying to get air pressure out of it and and looking for leaks,” Woodard said.
They say so far there aren’t any major issues, despite the challenge of jump-starting an old system in freezing weather.
Upstairs at the Halsingland, Former employee Brandi Peters runs a final check of toiletries, bedding, plumbing, and lightbulbs before shutting off the lights for the evening. She finds on tub leaking slightly, but fixes it. The rooms are ready for emergency workers arriving from around the state. Randles pops in from the front desk for a final sweep with the vacuum.
On Sunday, volunteers scrambled to open more rooms in another of the hotel’s buildings—the borough issued an evacuation warning that could displace a roughly a third of the town.
