Ketchikan City Council advances resolution marking two years since fatal landslide

Ketchikan is scheduled to hold a community remembrance and plaque unveiling Aug. 25, two years to the day after a landslide killed one person, injured three and destroyed homes in the White Cliff neighborhood.

The Ketchikan City Council moved a landslide commemoration resolution to its consent agenda at its regular meeting Aug. 20 and announced the observance, intended to honor residents affected by the slide. The resolution's text, number and final vote are not confirmed in available meeting records.

The Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management records the slide at about 4 p.m. Aug. 25, 2024, on a steep, forested hillside above the Third Avenue Bypass. Lower elevations took about 2.5 inches of rain that weekend. Higher elevations took up to 9 inches. Governor Mike Dunleavy declared a state of emergency. NOAA's record describes two landslides that day, with damage to homes, roads, businesses and infrastructure alongside the single fatality. It logs $10,000 in property damage, a figure that understates the losses described elsewhere in the disaster record.

FEMA declared a major disaster Nov. 13, 2024, naming the Ketchikan Gateway Borough the sole area eligible for Public Assistance and Hazard Mitigation funding. Crews hauled more than 100 loads of debris. Officials aimed to finish demolishing condemned homes by Sept. 9, 2024, and the Third Avenue Bypass was scheduled to reopen by Sept. 30. The Rainbird Trail closed the day of the slide and remained off limits as of a 2024 response update.

A U.S. Geological Survey inventory documents 162 news-reported landslides in Southeast Alaska between 1990 and 2024, covering Ketchikan, Juneau, Haines, Sitka, Petersburg, Wrangell and Prince of Wales Island. The memorial fits a broader Alaska pattern of resolutions and anniversary observances marking weather-driven disasters.

Sandra West showed a photograph of the Ketchikan slide to a U.S. House Natural Resources subcommittee May 20, 2025. "We have some evidence that landslides are increasing in frequency," she said.