Juneau, Alaska – Butch Holst and his wife were thrilled in 1978 when they sealed a deal on a downtown home at the foot of Mount Juneau. Thrilled, that is, until someone showed them a photo of their house in a National Geographic article that said Juneau has the highest risk of an avalanche disaster of any city in America.
“That was our first indication that there was a serious problem,” said Janice Holst, a dance teacher and grandmother of 12.
Almost 30 years after moving in, she still gets jumpy when winter sets in. And despite her husband’s assurances, a barrage of alerts this year from the city’s new online avalanche-forecasting system has been particularly unnerving.
More than 60 homes, a busy boat harbor and sections of a main thoroughfare in Alaska’s capital city are considered at risk from at least a dozen chutes that sweep off the steep shoulders of Mount Juneau. Small slides let loose all the time, but the only reported death was in 1971, when a mountain climber hiked up into an avalanche path and was buried in a slide that he triggered.
The costliest slide on record, in March 1962, was an airborne blast of powdery snow that blew off roofs, knocked houses off their foundations and hurled trees through walls and windows. No one was seriously hurt, though 17 homes had significant damage.
Specialists say it is only a matter of time before another big one hits Juneau.
