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Outside/In

‘Til the landslide brings it down

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.71.5K Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When officials commissioned a set of updated hazard maps for Juneau, Alaska, they thought the information would help save lives and spur new development. Instead, the new maps drew public outcry from people who woke up to discover their homes were at risk of being wiped out by landslides. What’s followed has been a multiyear project – not to address the challenges posed by climate-fueled landslides – but to alter, ignore, or otherwise shelve the maps that outline the threat in the first place. Host Nate Hegyi visits Juneau to see one example of why, across the country, even the most progressive Americans are rejecting tough truths about climate change when it comes knocking at their own back door. Featuring: Tom Mattice, Christine Woll, Eve Soutiere, and Lloyd Dixon.    SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In.  Subscribe to our newsletter (it’s free!). Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook.   LINKS You can check out Juneau’s new hazard maps, along with many of its neighborhood meetings, on their website.  Dive into why the insurance industry stopped providing landslide coverage to Southeast Alaska. KTOO had a wonderful story on how a 1936 landslide that killed 15 people in Juneau became a faded memory. Zach Provant, a researcher at the University of Oregon, spent months investigating the rollout of Juneau’s hazard maps.    CREDITS Host: Nate Hegyi Reported and produced by Nate Hegyi Edited by Taylor Quimby and Katie Colaneri Editing help from Felix Poon and Justine Paradis Rebecca Lavoie is our Executive Producer Music for this episode by Blue Dot Sessions Our theme music is by Breakmaster Cylinder Outside/In is a production of New Hampshire Public Radio Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, this is outside in. I'm Nate Hedgy.

0:04.0

It's about 38 degrees.

0:07.0

Wet slushy snow, clouds, classic Juno Alaska Day.

0:16.0

Earlier this year, I was jet-lagged cold and waiting for a guy named Tom Matisse to meet me at a parking lot in Alaska's capital city.

0:24.4

When he finally pulled up he was driving a giant white Ford pickup truck with a bumper

0:29.6

sticker that said, Fish and Magician. Yeah, it was an old plow truck from Oregon and I painted it all up.

0:36.0

Yeah, it looks good.

0:37.0

It looks really good.

0:38.0

Tom's lived in Juno for about two decades,

0:41.0

and he wanted to meet me at the city's famous shrinking glacier

0:44.3

Mendenhall. We watched as people walked across a giant frozen lake to see the

0:50.1

glacier's ice caves. You want to see me out on that ice?

0:53.2

Probably not.

0:54.2

There's springs and creeks coming out

0:56.2

from underneath the ice over there,

0:58.0

and the ice still calves over there.

1:00.0

And you could go over there and have a piece of ice

1:01.9

the size of a house fall off and crash right through the ice.

1:05.0

So I'm a little always a little nervous on the lake. It's pretty safe, but you definitely want to pay attention.

1:11.0

Tom is used to thinking carefully about risk.

1:14.8

He's the emergency programs manager for the city and borough of Juneau.

1:18.8

It's basically his job to stop people from getting killed, not only from ice, but from landslides too.

...

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