<\/a>Mucked-out debris sits out back of a house that Team Rubicon, a disaster-recovery nonprofit, is helping to restore following Haines’ 2020 landslides. (Michael S. Lockett \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
An ongoing recovery<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Heinz said there’s roughly 50 cases the LTRG’s still dealing with, with issues ranging from damaged foundations to broken doors and windows, washed out culverts, driveways rendered impassable or physical or water damage from sliding debris.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t During the initial response, the Borough of Haines focused its response on infrastructure projects that would be paid for or reimbursed by Federal Emergency Management Agency, while other organizations focused on individual homeowners, said Harriet Brouillette, tribal administrator for the Chilkoot Indian Association. Organizations had to scramble to help out individual homeowners while the borough government focused on different projects.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t [Chef Amara Enciso represents Alaska in 2022 Great American Seafood Cook-Off]<\/ins><\/a><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “We sat down and said, let’s figure this out. Let’s see what we can do. We worked with (Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska) at first. <\/a>We organized our staff according to their disaster recovery org chart,” Brouillette said. “We had federal highways funding. That enabled us to help out with driveways. That was day one. No one else was doing it. We had to step up where no one else was doing it.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The division of what the borough would focus on and what would be left to other organizations was one of the early issues, Chapell said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “The borough made it clear that they were only going to be participating in projects they could get FEMA to reimburse them for,” Chapell said. “We had to scratch our heads and say, what falls into that FEMA basket and what does not.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Haines, a town of less than 2,500, lacked the manpower to work on anymore than the most crucial functions in the wake of a major disaster, Chapell said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “We’re talking about rural Alaska. Haines Borough focused on what was most important, that the public infrastructure was safe. When a small municipality works on disaster recovery, it can’t work on other stuff,” Chapell said. “I think Haines is really good at response. We’re a giving community. We come together and there’s extraordinary generosity in this community. But I don’t know if we’ve ever faced a disaster of this scale and had to grapple with it.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Since then, the LTRG and Chilkoot Indian Association have been working on helping residents with damages sustained during the landslides, Heinz said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “Chilkoot Indian Association has been working on these cases the whole time. The Long Term Recovery Group has been working on these cases the whole time,” Heinz said. “Each organization has a different piece of the puzzle for the recovery.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Elizabeth Saunders, a member of Team Rubicon, installs drywall at a project site in Haines on July 22, 2022. (Michael S. Lockett \/ Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t Out-of-state aid<\/strong><\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Team Rubicon, a veteran-founded volunteer disaster response agency, has been involved since relatively early in the process, said Brandon Callahan, operations manager for the team’s rebuild program, a long-term recovery program based on helping to overhaul buildings seriously affected by natural disasters.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Team Rubicon first came to Haines to assist disposal of destroyed drywall from inundated residences, augmenting local organizations with the muscle to move hundreds of tons of drywall outside for collection and disposal.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “One of the big questions in the beginning of all this was how to deal with the debris. The moldy drywall. The massive amounts of debris,” Chapell said. “Borough took on the upfront cost for disposal of debris. We didn’t have the people power to get the stuff out of the homes and into the containers. That is when TR was called.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Team Rubicon provided the muscle to help people muck out their drywall, Chapell said, helping to remove more than 440,000 pounds of drywall. From there, Heinz, who started working with the team in operations outside of Haines, put forward a proposal for the Rebuild program to assist some of the most seriously affected residences in Haines.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “I came up the first time in November of 2021. That’s when we started to meet the clients, see the houses, see how we might be able to assist,” Callahan said. “We had to plug into the existing system and see what we can do with it.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t Team Rubicon found two projects that they could assist with, Callahan said- the residence of Lemmie Spradlin, which had been hit by washout and rendered uninhabitable, and the residence of Steve and Sarah Virg-In, which had been taken off its foundation by a landslide which also ruptured their buried oil tank, and intended to turn their garage into a residence.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “We took (Spradlin) for TR’s approval in January 2022,” Callahan said. “We had gone through the bid process starting with local contractors and we weren’t able to make it work. Chilkoot Indian Association stepped up and that’s the only reason we were able to do it.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The harsh winter storms of early 2022 and their massive snow loading proved one more obstacle.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “We approved the case and started procurement,” Callahan said. “When the materials were on the barge, that big winter storm happened.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t The snow loading buckled Spradlin’s roof, requiring more renovations, and nearly scrubbing the project, Callahan said. The buckled roof pushed the reconstruction months to the right, Brouillette said. But Team Rubicon was able to work with local contractors to get the roof sorted and push through, Callahan said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t “That was almost the hit where we couldn’t continue,” Callahan said. “Sylvia and I are entirely too stubborn though.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t<\/a>