Heavy rain led to flooding in Haines, washing out roads and damaging properties. (Erik Stevens photo)

There are more landslides, floods and sinkholes in Haines than can be counted. The Haines Borough’s Public Works department has been working to get roads opened up,  but the risk of more debris coming downhill is making it difficult to impossible. .

The state Department of Transportation is responsible for clearing  the Haines Highway and Lutak Road. Haines Public Facilities Director Ed Coffland said residents living along Lutak Road have struggled to access town. 

“Pretty significant slide across the road. As of yesterday afternoon I know that they had a little path cut through there, but I would not travel on that road unless it was an absolute emergency,” Coffland said. 

Heavy snowfall early in the week caused Alaska Power and Telephone to switch the Haines Borough’s main electrical supply from hydropower to a diesel generator. That had local officials worried because the generator relies on regular fuel deliveries, and there have been numerous mudslides along the road to the freight dock. 

Now the town is back on hydro, but according to Haines Power Operations Manager Lance Caldwell there are outlying areas that have been without power for several days. 

“I’m going to venture to say there’s probably 40 homes at the current time out Lutak and the opposite side of the slide at Beach Road that currently do not have power,” Caldwell said. “Some of those areas are too dangerous and haven’t been evaluated well enough yet to allow crews in those areas to assess or even think about making a plan to return power.”

Numerous homes have been evacuated due to the risk of landslides. Caldwell said it is recommended that residents turn off the main electrical breaker in their homes in the event of an evacuation.

“If you don’t turn it off and you have a slide or a flood and it trips things off, it could eventually trip a whole feeder off and we could lose a quarter of town all over that one service,” Caldwell said.

The landslides have also compromised the town’s water and sewage systems.

Coffland said that public works staff have been unable to access one of the town’s water treatment plants off of Piedad Road.

“We need to be able to continue to supply chemicals, particularly chlorine, to it. We’re thinking that we may have to shut that plant down. Either that or we would have to go on to a boil order for the entire town, so likely we are going to shut that down soon,” Coffland said.

According to Coffland, if they have to shut off the Piedad Plant, there is still an adequate supply of water from the Lily Lake reservoir. 

A neighborhood near downtown Haines flooded Wednesday morning. (Henry Leasia/KHNS)

Meanwhile, the town’s sewage system has been inundated with water and debris. 

“We have a vacuum truck that is arriving today, which we are going to be using to clean the manholes out to get the rock out and get as much out as we can,” Coffland said. “That’s just an ongoing effort with that.”

Coffland says he has received calls from about 50 residents volunteering to assist the public works department, but has not had time to manage them. A system for organizing public works volunteers is being developed.