Ketchikan council to vote Thursday on $30,000 landslide grant

Ketchikan's city council votes Thursday on accepting $30,000 in federal money to work out how much rain makes the slopes above town dangerous, and to publish that risk on a public dashboard.

The money comes from the U.S. Geological Survey, and the work has already begun. The project period started Sept. 1, sixteen days before the council takes it up, and runs a year.

The vote comes two years after the Aug. 25, 2024 landslides on Third Avenue and Copper Ridge Lane, which killed one person, injured three and caused significant damage. Sean Griffin, a 17-year city public works employee, died in the Third Avenue slide while clearing storm drains. Chris Riley, a 15-year employee doing the same work, was severely injured and has since returned to the job.

The full project runs $61,563. The federal share is $30,000 and the city's is $31,563, though only $12,188 of that is cash from an existing public works engineering account. The rest is staff time.

It is on the consent agenda, the block of items the council passes in a single motion unless a member pulls one, and carries no public hearing. Assistant City Manager Shawn Hart wrote that the amounts fall below the threshold requiring formal council approval and that the item was brought forward for visibility. The $6,875,000 in state harbor funding on the same consent agenda does get a public hearing, because that resolution appropriates money and this one does not.

Ketchikan has been building toward this. A disaster declaration followed the Wolfe Point landslide in March 2025, and the council unanimously adopted the Southeast Alaska Landslide Risk Reduction Strategic Plan in April. Lisa Busch of the Southeast Alaska Landslide Information and Preparedness Partnership told the council then that adoption did not obligate immediate funding but strengthened the city's position.