Citizens with homes in two avalanche paths were curious about how City and Borough of Juneau Emergency Coordinator Tom Mattice is planning on mitigating danger — and how potential home buyouts in one zone might transpire.
About a dozen residents of the Behrends Avenue and White Subdivision areas attended a public hearing on the new avalanche mitigation study on Monday night. Mattice went over the mitigation study, emphasizing it does not remap avalanche zones, but looks at how to best mitigate small and large avalanche threats to those areas.
Mattice said this is the first study of its kind funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He said typically the agency will fund “brick and mortar” projects that help in disaster mitigation, but the city felt its studies were too out of date to propose a specific project.
The new study looks at a variety of mitigation options for both zones, and gives recommendations and cost estimates on each — or in some cases a need for more geotechnical surveying.
Mattice said it took FEMA 28 months to approve funding for the study.
Mattice said his goal with the study was to find out whether it was feasible to create false releases in these zones to mitigate serious avalanches. Unfortunately for the city, the study concludes otherwise.
Mattice said even though there have been a lot of small avalanches this winter, they have all come from lower points on the mountain. He said that means there is still a lot of snow, and some danger, in the upper starting zones because of the amount of snow and some points of instability.
The study found if they did artificial releases in those areas, it would be fairly likely the blasting would cause a chain reaction in other avalanches. Mattice said they could end up setting off an avalanche where they would not be able to protect the homes.
In the case of Behrends Avenue, the other mitigation options are too expensive to implement — such as creating snow supporting structures. Those structures would need to be 3.9 meters to 6.9 meters in height, depending upon the location. The city would need 10,800 meters worth of these structures and would cost $32.4 million. Another part of the problem, aside from the cost, is the industry standard for the structures is around 4 meters. Also, if the initial cost weren’t enough, those structures would eventually rust and need to be replaced. Ultimately, the report recommended home buyouts in this neighborhood. It ranked zones in priority, 1 through 5.
FEMA, Mattice said, does have funding options to do so. Mattice said eventually the state and city could become stakeholders in this as well, if there is enough citizen support to do so. Mattice said one possibility for city support could be land swaps.
Mattice said the study is not the conclusion they were hoping for, but it is a conclusion with a window of funding. He said he doesn’t want to see a 300-year avalanche event and be talking about buying empty land where those homes currently sit.
Mattice said the plan is to talk with homeowners in priority zone 1 first and gauge their interest. Then the two will come up with what they believe is fair market value and then Mattice would apply for grant funds. An official appraisal will need to be conducted at some point. Mattice emphasized this process is entirely voluntary.
The White Subdivision portion of the study has called for further study on the geotechnical aspects of the upper starting points on the mountain. The company who created the study said with the data available, they were uncertain if snow supporting structures would even be able to be installed because of the mass wasting events up on the mountain. There also isn’t enough historic snow data gathered from that section of the mountain to determine what size and how many structures would be needed.
The study recommended, pending further study, snow supporting structures or berms higher on the mountain with a supporting dam at the bottom. Mattice said with those two efforts, the danger could be best mitigated. Both of those structures also are most effective against wet avalanches. Powder avalanches would still most likely overflow.
Mattice said the study also outlines more forecasting and evacuation suggestions. Mattice said he rates threat on a scale of 1-5, however he rarely goes past 3. He said if it gets to be a level 4 warning, people should be staying off Glacier Highway and, if they have homes in that area, staying with a friend.
One woman said she recalled this same conversation years ago, regarding home buyouts but nothing was done. Mattice said FEMA needed more current studies, so until they were updated the funding window was closed.
Lisa Anderson, a resident in the priority zone 1 in the Behrends Avenue area, asked if FEMA took 28 months to approve funding for a study, how long Mattice thought the home buyout process would take.
“It’s going to take some time,” he said. “It’s not an immediate process. Before I can form a cost benefit analysis, I need to know if I’m talking about one home or three homes.”
He also said they are currently looking at one funding stream, but if there were other options with the state and even city that speed could increase. Mattice said natural disaster recovery funds are allocated on a per-state basis and if a disaster strikes, more funds are allocated to that state for mitigation.
“Our goal is going to move through the process as quickly as we can to put it on their plate,” he said. “Hopefully we can find the money after we perform the cost benefit analysis.”
Resident Susetta Beattie asked what if there are residents in priority zone 1 who aren’t interested in moving.
“This is completely voluntary,” Mattice said. “My job is to find solutions and open the door. It’s your decision to walk through the door or close it.”
Mattice said the entire process of going for home buyouts will be all about baby steps. Everything from determining fair market value to getting funding.
Another resident said it looks like his home is in priority zone 5, and said it sounds like it will be a few years before they get to him.
“My concern between then and now is our forecasting,” he said. “I haven’t heard you go above 3 (threat level). ... That alleviates my fear that I’m going to get buried. How are you going to judge when to get to 4?”
Mattice said he watches the weak layers of snow and watches them very closely as they get packed deeper and deeper into the snow pack. He said the hairs go up on the back of his neck after the snow gets to be 1.2 meters deep and those weaker layers get further down. Mattice said the forecasting is not an exact science, but that’s what he watches for and he uses several different indicators to determine the danger level.
• Contact reporter Sarah Day at 523-2279 or at sarah.day@juneauempire.com.
• Editor's note: This article has been changed to correctly reflect City and Borough of Juneau Emergency Director Tom Mattice's explanation of how federal natural disaster recovery funds are allocated.
Comments (31)
Add commentStill not sure how it's the city's responsibility
Why is it the city's responsibility to buy out the affected homes? The owners bought in a known danger zone so why should my tax $$ pay for their bad decisions?
Help me out here.....
PS...MIGHT BE AN OLD TOPIC but same question....the the city once proposed assistance for the merchants warf....why should the city pitch in for repairs or a buy out of privately owned property
Sounds like everyone at that
Sounds like everyone at that meeting was salivating over the thought of the city offering top dollar for their old houses they bought years ago cheap.
Does that mean the city will start buying out the homes in the flood designation areas too? My neighborhood the flood zone is directly caused by city actions. Everything was just fine until the city forced everyone off their wells and onto city water...$500k will do nicely.
flood Zone
My home is within a flood zone. I want the City to buy my house too.
like low tide not like its a new thing
Gee It is not like the mountain just popped up over night they knew about the problem when they bought the house. That is why if you rent one of those houses you have to sign off on that you know that the snow could come and not sue the house owner.
Customer service is not dead...
When we looking at houses about a decade ago, our realtor refused to show us anything in that neighborhood and told us why. Sooner or later, somebody buys it because a) they were offered such a great deal or b) because their realtor just wanted the commission.
Bouncing the Rubble
This is an obvious problem that has been a clear and present danger for years. But why should the CBJ and federal government be on the hook for fixing this problem? Individuals who elected to move into an obvious avalanche zone should be responsible for their own actions here.
Meters?
Is Mattice from Europe??? Why is he using the meter for his measurements???
Make the bankers pay part
Those who hold mortgages on those properties and are making money on those properties should hold some responsibility. Homeowners and bankers took a risk and should have to live with it.
Mitigation
It is important to me that everyone understands this process and project.
This is not the cities responsibility and yet we care about the safety of our residents. No one is suggesting the city buy anything at this point.
The buyouts would be funded through federal grants. These funds will be spent anyways, either someplace else or Juneau can benefit from them.
No one is salavating over the thought of buyouts. I have yet to hear from any residents who are ready to sell... The homeowners in this neighborhood knew what they were getting into and most of them love their homes.
The buyouts would be at fair market value and no one would make any more than if they sold it tomorrow to you or I.
I use the metric system for snow science becuase that is the international standard of the industry... also becuase it works... We deal with mass, percentage of density and other things and with the metric system you simply move the decimal most times... with the english system you have to do much more math and it is harder to explain. Bottom line... the metric system works... especially for science.
This is just a bunch of
This is just a bunch of higher income people trying to get everyone else to pay for their mistake. When is the next meeting? People need to do more than blog about how wrong this is. No home buy outs for this. Everyone is now paying more in flood insurance because of fema's re-zoning for that 300 year flood. These people bought thier homes fully aware of the avalanche risks. The people that are now sudenlly in a flood zone had no control over the changes made after thier purchase. If by chance there is a buy out (which I do not agree with) it should only be for the purchase price because there is no eminent domaine purchase requiring a fair market price.
Mr. Mattice
Is correct that the program will be "voluntary" and if federal funds are utilized to relocate or acquire the homes then the cost to the CBJ will be minimal. However, these observations do not address the fundamental concern articulated by many commentators.
Mattice's observation that if the funds are not used in Juneau they will be allocated elsewhere is correct in the abstract, but one of the reasons the United States of America is broke. Using funds borrowed from China (the nation who have been buying a huge amount of America's debt), to pay for moving homeowners who purchased a home in an avalanche zone will add to the nation's fiscal problem and will not be part of a genuine solution to the situation where someone bought in a known risk zone. In fact, using federal funding to buy out homes knowingly purchased in a risk zone rewards bad behavior and essentially punishes prudent conduct.
The sense of most commentators here is to require personal accountability. The CBJ should discuss and add personal accountability into the equation before making any movement towards spending more local funds on this issue or pursuing federal bucks to back folks out of what was and is clearly a mistake on their part.
Tom
Tom your comment “The buyouts would be funded through federal grants. These funds will be spent anyways, either someplace else or Juneau can benefit from them.” Is exactly why this country is going broke.
As a taxpayer I do not
As a taxpayer I do not disagree with the points made that America should probably not fund these types of projects and yet as a Juneau resident and mitigation specialist if I can access these funds to benefit my jurisdiction I am going to do exactly that. It's my job.
We can fund a million Juneau problems for rebuilding one New Orleans. Your issues and concerns are federal issues not Juneau issues so I take no offense in your comments yet I cannot solve your concerns.
If your house is in a flood
If your house is in a flood zone the mortgage lender requires flood insurance. Is anything required of these people?
barnardj1
I cant say I know the definite answer for you barnard but I can tell you I have been called many times by people looking to buy homes in the avalanche zones who are looking for avalanche insurance... to qualify for their loans...
Insurance
If individuals looking to purchase homes in an avalanche area are attempting to procure insurance, then why not let the market transactions determine the value of the property in question.
Is this another example of our local government attempting to impose a solution on a problem that doesn't exist in the real world?
I was told you can't get
I was told you can't get avalanche insurance for homes on Wickersham which is also at the bottom of a big cliff with lots of snow on top. Not positive this is the case but I would imagine the premiums would be pretty huge if anyone would insure.......then again the homes my mom lived in as a child on Behrends and Evergreen have never been damaged by avalanche and they must've been built close to 100 years ago so what is the real risk of an avalanche affecting these homes?
insurance
I have a friend that lives on Wickersham and has avi insurance... less than $800 a year...
FYI
Bottom line folks... when a 30, 100, or 300 year event happens again... which it will... we will be really lucky if we dont kill one or lots and lots of people... and that includes people just driving to work... but we cannot even consider protecting the road until the houses are gone
You can see the river rising... and leave... but you cant see the avalanche coming til its too late...
Someday that neighborhood will be removed... by choice or chance... and sooner or later you wont get to decide... and it will be a bad day.. the neighborhood isnt anywhere near 100 years old... but in the last 120 years the avalanches have hit tidewater 3 times... nuff said...
Like grandma used to tell
Like grandma used to tell me...believe half of what you see and none of what you hear......
$800/yr doesn't sound like the insurance companies see that much risk so why all the hoopla?
We looked at a house near
We looked at a house near behrends and between the flood insurance and Avi insurance it was more than the mortgage. They never did sell the house, so I would say market value of those homes is right about 0.
Enough Said....
....Hardly qualifies as the definitive final word, even if using the modern variation: "nuff said."
The point of most commentators is that this topic is about personal responsibility and the allocation of risk as much as the inevitability of an avalanche. More needs to be said about who should bear the risk here and less about the inevitability of an incident.
But of course the inevitability of the CBJ staff that is actually assumed here is that the community should just trundle down the path of acquisition and that the public will pick up the cost of acquisition. The public being the American public, or so it seems, which of course is increasingly the Alaskan way in the last three decades where looking for a handout from the federal government has replaced critical thinking and analysis as the preferred mode of government.
Can anyone remember the watershed where America became a nation dominated by grants and where being an intern was considered a job? The analysis and discourse by CBJ staff so far is a perfect example of the kind of analytical process that views governments role as being to define the problem, select the solution and treat the citizens as the pigeons who will pay for the cure. I for one am not buying this form of government that is high-centered on a sense of entitlement and not demonstrably effective anymore.
Take a step back and consider genuine emergencies and real situations where harm occurs. Pick your favorite situation here be it a hurricane, a tornado or a flood. Allocating resources to communities hit by climate and weather induced disasters makes sense. Send in the National Guard, the USCG and help rebuild for the obvious reason that events like hurricanes are phenomenon that have a greater random pattern compared to an avalanche in an avalanche zone or a flood in a flood zone. Anyone that wants to live in an avalanche zone can have at it on their own. Ditto for anyone that desires to live in an obvious flood zone. Build a cozy little cottage or cabin next to the river or in an avalanche zone but don't start whining for a government handout when your mortgaged house gets croaked.
Is it not obvious to anyone at this point in time that Nature bats last and hits hard on occasion? We all agree that sooner or later there will be a whopper avalanche in the avalanche zones of Juneau. The issue is whether government is called upon to do something and if so, what should be done.
The bureaucrats have clearly embarked on a favored solution and at least a portion of the public is balking. Why? Is it because some of the public see that this is a government solution in search of a problem when there are abundant community problems that exist that arguably demand more attention and a larger share of scarce community resources? Is it because individuals in Juneau think that anyone that acquires property in a known risk zone is responsible for their action?
Before we lurch off on a quest to bailout the folks who arguably have put themselves in a risky situation, could we have an adult discussion down at 155 Seward Street on whether the CBJ is really compelled to do anything here other than to point out the obvious: If you acquire property in an avalanche zone, then you do so at your own risk.
Maybe it's a little equity
Joe, considering the fact that the Feds have done nothing to go after the criminals that robbed my and millions of others of their retirement investments, I can live with the Feds spending a relatively small amount to purchase homes built in late 40s and early 50s in an avalanche zone that was not recognized at the time, which is a drop in the bucket compared to the Wall Street bailouts.
When are you "personal responsiblity" nuts going to pressure Congress and ANY administration, regardless of party, to prosecute the criminals that stole trillions in retirement investments and gambled it on derivatives and crap mortgages?
Curmudgeon
There is no rule against coloring outside the lines on these blogs, so call anyone you want a nut, if you desire.
For what it is worth, I believe the banking system in the United States of America is broke, that many of the bankers and individuals in the the financial investment system are bent, corrupted in quite a few cases and in some cases thieves. That some have not been put in the dock and prosecuted is testament to the lack of courage and adult supervision on the part of elected officials from both parties and also related to the amount of influence the banking and "investment" community has within the political system.
In any event, there is a measure of personal responsibility that anyone seeking to invest in equities, bonds or other financial instruments is required to exercise. The common strand among many commentators here applies to personal finance decision making as well as to acquisition of property in a known hazard area.
Anyone seeking a government bailout when their highly leveraged, huge sub-urban house house located miles away from where they work or out in some old pasture or cropland is underwater gets the same sympathy from me as someone that decides to buy or build adjacent to a river known to flood or in a known avalanche zone -- zero. Remember, we are not really talking about some poor person who bought or built a home back in the late 40's or 1950's who had no knowledge about avalanche danger and if we are, then buy them out in a manner commensurate with their acquisition price. The point being, nobody should get the speculative premium from the government when they acquired a property in a known avalanche zone. To do so would reward goofball behavior at the expense of the public treasury, which is all of us that pay taxes, a population that is admittedly in decline anymore.
Your sentiment that as long as the country is blowing billions and squandering money by the boatload so why not shunt some up to Juneau is probably the prevailing sentiment anymore, at least in Alaska but one does wonder when this will end and in any event it isn't likely to end well. Sure, it is only 30 million, or so, so why not? Thirty-million here, thirty-million there, it isn't like it is real money, right? These are just Federal Reserve Notes, right?
I guess I am old school, I subscribe to the belief that $30M here and everywhere else starts adding up to some serious money after a while and I am not willing to keep borrowing from the Chinese in a manner that mortgages the future for all the younger members of our society while all the Baby Boomers, Tier I retirees and other folks that have taken, taken, taken are no longer producing and sit around whining about how unfair their bourgeois life has become.
@Tom
As a taxpayer I can't agree it's my responsibility to buy these houses no matter where the money comes from. It is the responsibility of the individual homeowners to consider their safety and act accordingly.
If I make a poor decision when I buy a home...I am on the hook for my mistake and can't blame the builder or real estate professional if I agree to take a known risk. If someone lied or hid information...well ...that's another matter and I would go to the courts for satisfaction not ask the public to buy my house.
Any of those property owners up there connected in some way to the decision makers? Can't put my finger on why this story smells a little.
Avalanche areas on a mountain
Avalanche areas on a mountain are pretty easy to distinguish. Just look for the spot where there are not large evergreen trees. It's usually a dead giveaway.
Buyback? Is the government going to buy back the piece of crap car I bought?
no one is lining up for buyouts...
I have yet to hear from any residenst in the Behrands neighborhood who are ready to sell their home...
Its a study folks...from the best snow scientists in the world...
It says... you made a mistake a long time ago and should have never put homes there... now you can either fix the problem or watch someday as people die...its not about money, its about avoiding a natural disaster.
No one is making any money on this... all they would gain for their participation in solving the problem is the hassle of moving... and all I gain is a lot more work, but we will be solving a longstanding problem.
Once again... I agree that america has spending issues... but as far as these federal funds go, the money will be spent... the only question is, will it be spent somewhere else... or to save lives in Juneau...
I think all your time, energy, and comments would be better served talking to Washington DC to solve the real issue...but I understand your point.
Tom Mattice
I may not agree with everything you have to say but you get points for coming here to discuss this subject with everyone.
So if I have a family member
So if I have a family member facing foreclosure, because they at the time, did not foresee that they would become addicted to drugs and not be able to make their mortgage (yes, this is really happening in my family)... does that mean that the CBJ or FED should buy their home in the crime&drug ridden area that used to be viewed as safe when the house was built and sold? Just curious... cause it sure would be nice if somebody saved us all from the problems we knowingly (to some extent) created :)
So, AKlove....
Your salvation is possible.
You'll need to hire an addiction forecaster, and then of course hire some of the worlds leading addicts to conduct highly scientific drug studies. You'll then need to splash your case studies in the media, rinse and repeat.
It won't take nearly as long as you think for the public to see it your way...remember you have the leading drug and addiction experts on your side.
After all, it's just other peoples money anyway...right Tom?