Body Recovered In Alaska Landslide

Longtime Sitka resident Nolan Simpson said he toured parts of town and saw one home where the driveway was gone, replaced by a stream washing through it. He passed the Indian River and said it was roaring.

The dogs are “instrumental in the search”, Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management spokesperson Jeremy Zidek said.

Gov. Bill Walker is touring the area Wednesday to see the damage from six landslides that followed 2 1/2 inches of rainfall in 24 hours. The majority of earth and debris on the hillside have already come down, so there’s not much left to conjure up another landslide, which would have put the folks searching at even more risk.

However, rain fell overnight, and Zidek says the geologist will have to re-examine the area.

More heavy rain was expected into the weekend.

The land is still unstable, which is impeding search and rescue efforts.

Crews in Sitka unsuccessfully tried to stabilize the ground after part of a mountain gave way and swept tree-tangled muck into a construction site Tuesday. Sitka, nearly 600 miles southeast of Anchorage, is a popular cruise ship destination that features such landmarks as Mount Edgecumbe, an extinct volcano that rises 3,200 feet and somewhat resembles Japan’s Mount Fuji.

Tucked against snowcapped mountains, the city is located in rain forest terrain on the west coast of Baranof Island.

25-year-old Ulises Diaz and 26-year-old Elmer Diaz, two men working on a house in the path of the slide, and a city building inspector, 61-year-old William Stortz, remain missing. The structure was completely obliterated by the landslide that struck Tuesday morning. The brothers’ parents also live in Sitka.

Ramon Hernandez, who works with the Diaz brothers, is holding onto hope that the brothers will be found alive during the search.

“It’s pretty devastating on how fast something like this can happen”, Simpson, a retired commercial fisherman, said in a phone interview from a saloon. “I think it’s fair for me to have a phone call with good news now”.

City spokesman Ken Fate said there is no time-frame for fully clearing the site, which he called a huge undertaking.

A new home under construction on Sitka’s Kramer Avenue was obliterated in the slide, August 18, 2015.

Sitka police spokesperson Gary Crawford has been blunt with the families of the missing men.

“This has been a very sad week for the people of Sitka”, Walker said in a statement released by his office.

Some residents near the construction site and at a downslope neighborhood were allowed to return home after being evacuated.

The city of more than 9,000 people declared a state of emergency.