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Short Wave

Predicting Landslides: After Disaster, Alaska Town Turns To Science

Short Wave

NPR

Daily News, Nature, Life Sciences, Astronomy, Science, News

4.76K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On August 18, 2015, in Sitka, Alaska, a slope above a subdivision of homes under construction gave way. This landslide demolished a building and killed three people. Today on the show, host Emily Kwong recounts the story of the Kramer Avenue landslide and talks about how scientists and residents implemented an early warning system for landslides to prevent a future disaster.

Transcript

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0:00.0

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.

0:04.6

Okay, Erin, I want to tell you a little bit about Sitka.

0:08.8

So this is the town in Alaska where I used to live and report.

0:13.2

And there was one day that honestly changed people's relationship to the weather.

0:17.2

Emily, I love your Sitka stories, so I'm all ears.

0:21.4

Yeah, Sitka's on an island on the edge of the Pacific Ocean.

0:24.6

In the Tongus National Forest, it's beautiful there.

0:27.7

And it rains a lot over 100 inches a year.

0:31.2

We have beautiful rivers with salmon and the salmon need rain.

0:36.7

Our ecosystems need a lot of rain.

0:39.4

This is Lisa Bush, Executive Director of the Sitka Sound Science Center.

0:42.8

You know, all of this is like, this is, we are rain people.

0:45.2

We are people of the rain.

0:46.5

And Lisa never feared the rain before.

0:49.8

But the morning of August 18th, 2015 was different.

0:53.3

I remember my pants getting wet like all the way up to my knees, just walking from my

0:58.2

car to the airport.

0:59.8

So I remember thinking this is a lot of rain, a lot of rain.

1:03.7

Rivers in town began to rise and the land started to slide.

1:07.6

Forty landslides were documented on barren off and Chichagoff islands that day.

1:12.2

A slope above a subdivision of new homes under construction gave way.

1:19.5

This landslide, the Kramer Avenue landslide, demolished a building and took the lives of

...

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