Hoonah’s stakeholders are not pleased with the scheduled ferry service cutoff next month.
The terminal will be closed from June 15-29 while repairs are made. During this time, there will be no transports to Hoonah by the Alaska Marine Highway System.
“I’m not too happy with it,” said Hoonah Mayor Alf “Windy” Skaflestad. “Everybody else has ferry service but we’re left out.”
“It’s kind of devastating to us,” he said.
Skaflestad said this poses more than an inconvenience for the residents and businesses. He said they rely on trucks and vans of supplies that come in weekly. “We have businesses that have their groceries supplied every week by a ferry, supplies to keep them going.”
He said the scheduled time was also the biggest time of the year for some of these.
Upon learning of the outage, Skaflestad met with the Economic Development Group. He said the general consensus was disappointment in being without the service for two weeks. In the meantime, they are working to come up with ways to ensure all supply needs are met ahead of time.
Tyler Hickman, vice president of operations at Icy Strait Point, was at that meeting. He, too, was upset at the news and agreed that going two weeks without the service will be hard.
“This is going to have an impact on every business in town,” he said.
Another issue Hoonah has with the outage is the notification. He said that most of representatives at the meeting hadn’t been notified properly or early enough. He said those at Icy Strait Point only found out through contacts in Juneau.
“The major disappointment is here we are on May 6 and we’re just now having to get ready. They haven’t given us enough time to deal with this adequately.”
Skaflestad said he also doesn’t think Hoonah was notified properly and that the burden was put on him to notify the community through flyers.
Skaflestad also said he believes there should be at least one ferry allowed in during the renovations and, if so, they should be notified to plan accordingly.
Hickman agreed, saying he hopes the state will provide a barge for freight at least once during the outage, or subsidize air service.
“Air freight is so expensive. We can’t afford to take on that extra burden,” said Hickman.
Michael A. Neussl, Deputy Commissioner for Marine Operations with the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities, said the type of work on the dock will not allow for any ferries to get in during the construction.
He noted that, at one point, the loading platform itself will be removed.
Neussl said he understands that such an outage will have an impact, but the duration will be relatively short and the repairs are necessary. He earlier told the Empire that the best course of action for Hoonah residents is to stock up on groceries and supplies before June 15.
• Contact reporter Jonathan Grass at 523-2276 or jonathan.grass@juneauempire.com.
Comments (19)
Add commentHoonah ferry
Cry me a river. How about doing a little planning now that you know there will be no ferry, just order enough to cover the time between ferry's. You don't hear a whole heck of a lot of complaining from Tenakee Springs when our ferry service is disrupted which it is EVERY summer by the twice daily stops on good old Hoonah. Never have figured out why Hoonah gets better ferry service than some of the mainline city's.
At least you had some notice!
Sorry, I see what Dan is saying here. I've seen Pelican cut off way more, with way less notice. What really hurt them was the ferry used to stop long enough people could check out the town. Now there's no time to get off the ship during the stop every two weeks, or monthly visits. It really hurt Pelican. You guys had enough advance warning to plan.
My god everyone! There are
My god everyone! There are planes! I have a friend that lives there, has no real income to speak of and she still makes it over here all the time for doctor appointments and grocery shopping....Its like 50 bucks dude...people are so freakin panicky its ridicules...
Whiny..
Agree - this reaction is whiny at best. Let's remember why the service is being interrupted - So the dock can be fixed! Can't really do it in the winter - so there are your options - a tiny fraction of interruption, or no dock at all.
Honestly.
Build the road!
Just one more reason to build the road...improved ferry service for the rest of Southeast Alaska! Prime case right here.....plenty of ferries to serve Hoonah, if they weren't already being used where a road should be.
Really?
Building the road to another ferry terminal isn't the answer, gonna still need a ferry or some version of a shuttle that will take vehicles. Building the road is a bad idea for so many reasons.
Hoonah has a legitimate gripe. AK Marine Hwys is horrible about letting communities know about disruption in services for one reason or another, it happens every year. AK Marine Hwys knows, but doesn't talk to the communities to get input. They just don't care! I've worked for them, I know!
build the road to Skagway then
No reason to build a road to another ferry terminal, you got that right akangel, but the solution is to build it all the way through to Skagway not do nothing.
No notice. Then in the middle
No notice. Then in the middle of the tourist season. Way to go Parnell.
No notice. Then in the middle
No notice. Then in the middle of the tourist season. Way to go Parnell.
Hoona has Planes!
Wings and Air excursions can meet the public need everybody. Its only two weeks the docs are out of commission. Fly to Juneau or wherever and get your supplies! Its only like 80 dollars to fly you and your groceries ect...
Not a Parnell issue
unless you want to blame it on the people he appointed as commissioner, deputy commissioner, etc. He doesn't make these decisions.
AKJAMIN, you are right and its faster and the cost is almost the same!
no get the facts
it is AT LEAST 70 dollars for ONE person to fly on the plane and it only allows the first 50 lbs FREE!! after that you are charged an OUTRAGEOUS amount of money. And yes HOONAH gets a GREAT amount of ppl in and out of there cause its a TOURIST sight. it does have one of the longest ziplines in the world!! and yes it is short notice cause its about only a month away the ferry probably gets WAY more business then pelican and tenekee alone!! I am sure Pelican and Tenekee put up SOME KIND of fight when they cut the system down to what it is at!! Let the ppl of Hoonah fight to stop ALASKA MARINE LINES run all over southeast. they cut angoon off too!! ALASKA MARINE LINES IS A RIP OFF. THEY DON'T CARE. THEY WILL ONLY CHARGE MORE CAUSE OF GAS. FIGHT THE ALASKA MARINE LINES. NOT HOONAH.
Actually thats pretty
Actually thats pretty reasonable. I have friends that live there and they arent complaining at all. And 50 lbs of food will go long way if you do it right... Hoona isnt going to suffer thats for sure...
okay, I'll bite.
@ Bigdan. Plan aheah huh? Is this a original concept formulated by you? Don't suppose you'd believe that we already do that?
Tenakee Springs doesn't complain? Reread your own post.
Twice daily stops in "good ole Hoonah"? Are you serious? At least try to be factual. I've been aboard the ferry plenty of times with a stop in Tenakee. I can say a few things about that but I choose not to.
@AKdebs. We love Pelican. Not sure where this came from but we're glad Pelican has a ferry too. You need to know this latest ferry dilemna is our latest problem in a series of many. Heck, we didn't even have a terminal building for several months. We love our Alaska ferry too, but like the "BigDan solutions", couldn't they plan this a little better? Sheesh, our April Ferry schedule was almost non-existent for sailings - why wasn't this maintenence considered then? Just sayin'. Take care Debbie.
@Akjamin. Getting to Juneau and back is not the problem, its the lack of trucking vans, freight, shipping (etc) right in the middle of our "seasonal" work season. Its infrastructure. We need to make money to pay for electricity, live and even go to Juneau! Money kind of makes things easier, AK. Do you suppose Wings of Alaska has a cargo plane big enough for a few AML or other shipping vans? Hey, we'll make it.
Too bad the writer of this article riled a few of you. Its just that there was a better time for this and somebody let it pass.
Ok. This is why you stock up
Ok. This is why you stock up on deer and fish to compensate for times like these. Two weeks is not that long. I'm sure the people of Hoonah will get by. And to bigdan57, quit whining about the ferry service to Hoonah. There's reasons for why the ferry goes to Hoonah more. There's a lot more busines there than Tenakee. And, if you are so butthurt about the ferry service, then maybe you guys should vote for connecting a road from Tenakee to Hoonah. What a concept.
How did Gustavus survive..
without regular ferry service?
And I wouldn't call 50 cents a pound "outrageous" at all. the fare to Hoonah hasn't gone up in years.. so $69 each way is steal when you look at how other airlines have increased fares 25% to 50% on some routes. Wings and Air Ex can't be making a lot of cash if they haven't upped prices in 3 or 4 years, yet we're paying double for gas. I bet they're paying double too...
Kudos to them for not "gouging" the customers
and to follow up..
Ok, so the ferry is $66 roundtrip and takes 3 hours each way.
Wings has up to 7 flights a day at $123 roundtrip... so about double, but the flight is only 20 minutes each way. 5 hours of "extra time" in Juneau, plus the convenience of picking your own time is worth about $57, or $10 an hour. Just another way to think about it.
It's the supplies for the businesses....
that suffer when the ferry gets yanked. Even short-term. I use the ferry to supply our store. My orders are a speck compared to those combined of Hoonah. Freezer vans, refer vans, etc. I double up my order when I know the ferry is going out of commission for a while. If all the businesses in Hoonah doubled or tripled their orders for shipment on the ferry, what do you think that would do to the car deck? Make one heck of a lot less room for passengers to bring their vehicles, not to mention a huge layover in Hoonah while they on-loaded the extra containers and offloaded those extra full containers. It would be a mess. A month is not enough warning to switch those orders to suppliers that can deliver to AML for shipment. Supplies will run thin at the grocery stores and the restaurants. Luckily it is only two weeks. That first re-supply order that Hoonah's businesses do on the ferry when it gets back on line is going to be big. I predict that on that day, the ferry will be running very late, or perhaps even have to skip a port in order to make up for it. So, in the end, this may very well effect more than just Hoonah. So, plan ahead......just in case! :) Cheers!!
Hoonah ferry
Ok, so I got one thing wrong, not a ferry every day to Hoonah, but still see no need to stop in Hoonah on both south bound and north bound on the same day. As for a road to Hoonah from Tenakee, no thanks, I live here because there is no road. Besides, they wouldn't keep it open in the winter any way, and the money spent to maintain a road could be better spent on increasing ferry service. As for the stop in Tenakee, there are people living here that fought for NO ferry when it was originally proposed. If the rail belt politico's had their way, we wouldn't have any ferry's at all.