January 10, 2026 CBJ Media Briefing

Good morning, everyone.

Thank you all for being here this morning on a Saturday morning here in Juneau. My name is Ashley Heimbigner. I'm the Communications and Engagement Director for the City and Borough of Juneau, serving as the Public Information Officer for this disaster. We're waking up today, many of us are waking up today with probably not a lot of sleep last night. That was some very intense weather we've experienced after a lot of very intense weather, and we'll hear more about that.

From Aaron Jacobs at the National Weather Service. Uh, we thank you all for being on the call today, um, especially our members of the media and our subject matter experts to help make sure that our community is informed, um, on both the, the hazard risk that we continue to face and, um, the community's response efforts by all of our respective agency partners. Um, today, as with previous briefings, We will start out with an update from the National Weather Service, followed by a safety briefing and then situation updates on both the avalanche risk and other storm response efforts from various agencies. We do have representatives from CVJ, of course, CTFR, Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, the National Weather Service, Tlingit and Haida, U.S. Coast Guard, the State Emergency Operations Center, the Juneau School District, and the Red Cross and Bartlett Regional Hospital as well. We want to make sure that we have time for lots of questions, so we'll move forward quickly, but just a quick housekeeping item for our members of the media that are tuning in.

Please use the Q&A feature. We will be monitoring that and responding to questions as we have time during the agenda. For our members of the public that are tuning in, if you do have questions, please feel free to email [email protected]. We will— we do have teams standing by to respond to those emails and get back to you as quickly as possible if your questions are not answered during today's media briefing. With that, I will pass it to Aaron Jacobs of the National Weather Service.

Thank you, Aaron. Great, thanks Ashley. Yeah, my name is Aaron Jacobs. I'm the senior service hydrologist and meteorologist for the National Weather Service here in Juneau. And so our atmospheric river went through the region over last night, and it did raise our freezing levels up to be over 3,000 feet, and they did lower a little bit currently, but they're still fairly high, and the region has seen some showers moving through the region overnight.

We did, or at least In the last 36 hours, we saw about 1 to 2 inches fall in the Juneau area. We did see some snow ahead of that ranging from about 4 to 7, 8 inches out the road. And then the winds came up, the temperatures rose very rapidly, and we saw a fair amount of runoff that took place. Currently at the forecast office, the snow water equivalent right now is about 8.5 inches of liquid in our snowpack. And we, we did see some high winds also last night.

Generally around sea level, it was about 25 to 35 miles per hour, but in the mountaintops at Eagle Crest, we did see some higher wind gusts of about 50 to 60 miles per hour. And so moving into the next 24 hours and then into early next week, we are expecting to see another system move up into the region through tomorrow. And, but we will see showers through today, so we'll see maybe about an inch or so of liquid precipitation fall. Through tonight, and then we will see an increase in our precipitation, and our freezing levels are going to be coming back up with the system coming in from the south. And we'll start seeing those impacts, really, or those conditions really develop through tomorrow into tomorrow night.

And then we will see a little break in the weather, and then we do actually are seeing a little bit more of a, more of a significant system on the horizon going on to on Wednesday that we're keeping an eye on. Again, another fairly warm up and some heavy precipitation for that Tuesday, Wednesday timeframe. And to just put some historical context to what the Juneau and the Northern Panhandle is really seeing, the amount of snowpack that we are seeing in the ground, on the ground at the airport, and then this massive warm-up that we're seeing really hasn't been seen in the climate records. Last time that we saw about this amount of snow was in February of 1965. And then going into March that month, we didn't really see a big warm-up with rain.

So the conditions that the Juneau area is seeing with a lot of the ponding and the culverts and drainages and the snow loads and the avalanche risk is really something that we haven't seen, these combinations of the amount of snow on the ground in the mountains and then this massive warm-up. So it's just to give some historical context to something that that we're seeing in this region that we haven't seen in a very long time, if not ever. So I'll just leave it at that for right now, and I'll take any questions if there are any. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Aaron. I think because Aaron shared a lot of information, we are going to take a moment and take some Q&A specifically about the weather. And we have one coming in from Mark Sabatini, the Juneau Independent. Aaron, to what extent are the patterns we're seeing with record cold, snow, and now this rain the result of climate change?

With a warming environment and climate change, what we'll see, we'll see more extremes than our typical weather. So this is something that, again, we haven't really seen before in the historical past. And I think with a warming environment, we're more accustomed to probably see more of these extremes that we hadn't seen before. So I'm not directly accounting this to climate change itself, but through a warming environment and seeing these more extremes conditions, seems like they are coming around a little bit more. And again, we haven't really seen these conditions in the past.

So it'd be better for us to know what happens in the past to know how the future is. So yeah, these are unprecedented times that the Juneau area's seen and the causes are still to be really seen. But really, this is just the weather patterns that we're seeing, not necessarily more of a longer climate. Pattern.

Thanks, Erin. And just a quick follow-up from Mark as well. Can this type of weather be expected as a pattern moving forward during this winter?

Right now, our Climate Prediction Center isn't, I would say, not really advertising that we're going to go to very below-normal temperatures and below chances of below-normal precipitation that we could lead to the same kind of setup that we just saw. It was a very unique setup that we saw where we saw record cold temperatures leading up to the, the pattern change and see more moisture move onshore and then create all that snow. And then we didn't have that cold air, and then all that warm air superseded, turned to rain. So, um, I would say that we are just continuing to monitor the, the patterns and the systems as we come through over the next couple months. And we could see a cold pattern set up and then a warm, but that's typical though, what Southeast Alaska sees.

And just stay tuned to National Weather Service for any, um, more impactful weather events going through the season that could lead to some of the situation that we're seeing today.

Great, thank you. I think we'll move on to our safety briefing, but please continue to put questions in the chat. Thank you so much, Aaron. The situational awareness provided by the National Weather Service is, is so critical to everything we're doing. Assistant Chief Sam Russell and Safety Officer Mr. Baxter, take it away.

Good morning. So safety briefing for today, with the warmer weather and the atmospheric river that moved through yesterday, we have a significant slip and slide type situation going on out there. Flooding on the roads, especially not less traveled roads. You're going to have flooding on the roads and extremely slippery conditions. Parking lots are all going to be really slick.

I also like to point out that, you know, as the weather warms up and we've got a break in the weather, people are going to be tempted to get on the roofs and try and take care of some of the roof load, and we need to be really, really careful about being up on roofs. With this warming trend, the roofs are going to naturally drain, and the load is going to come off of them pretty, pretty fairly rapidly, just through the natural process. And so getting up on your roof is an extremely dangerous way to be as these slippery conditions exist. Don't forget that the, sort of on that note, Streets is out shoveling, both shoveling and working their equipment, so be cautious as you're driving. You may have crews that are working on the side of the road and they're in a precarious position with your car being much bigger than their bodies, so just watch out for road crews or other people on the side of the road.

As we're clearing sidewalks and, and hydrants and drains and everything else that's getting cleared right now. Um, we are still in an avalanche hazard. Um, we are still advising evacuation and making sure that people are out of the avalanche zones. Uh, refer to the CBJ maps to know whether or not you're in or out of the avalanche zones and know your hazards. But we are advising everybody that's in an avalanche zone to be out of the avalanche zone until we advised differently, and our avalanche forecaster will, will speak to that in a little bit.

Finally, I was asked to talk a little bit about what we've done to prepare for an avalanche because we're still preparing and being— and while we hope it doesn't happen, we want to be ready and expect it. So the fire department, as the first response to an avalanche, is working with the EOC and our partners to have a plan in place so that we can respond to that avalanche. Our primary concern is a life safety concern, so we're holding our resources as much as possible to a life safety status as opposed to mitigating other types of emergencies. Now, that doesn't mean that we're not responding to fires or EMS calls or anything else. We're not reserving reserving, but we just want to make sure we're focusing on a life safety mission.

We've staged equipment on both sides of any of our slide paths so that we can make sure that, uh, We have the equipment available. Our first, our initial operation is always to send an assessment crew to make sure we know what we're getting into before we start committing resources to those areas. We do that with most incidents. A lot of them we can mitigate with that crew in place. With a significant slide, we're going to send a small crew and do an assessment and then relay that back to the EOC to create a larger plan.

So that's our preparedness for an avalanche. If we have folks that are— everybody's going to be excited and try and get into those areas. Everybody wants to help. Everybody wants to get in there. The fire department personnel that are on scene, they're going to try and ask you not to go into those areas until they're deemed safe by our avalanche experts.

Don't take offense. We're going to ask you not to go in there for your safety and so that we don't have to come rescue you later. And we're going to ask you for some information like your name and your contact information so that we can make sure that you, if you, if you do decide to go in against our advice, that we know where you are, where you went, and if you get out so we can come looking for you if that's what we have to do. Other than that, we're working with our partners really closely to make sure that we have the resources needed Our initial operation is sort of small in resource pool, but we have a fairly robust off-duty and volunteer force that responds to our fire stations to act as our oncoming crews. So I guess that's a really long safety message, but stay safe out there.

Watch out for the slip and falls. It's really, really icy out there.

Thank you so much, Sam. Okay, a lot of information in there that we'll build off with our situation update. We're going to start with talking about the avalanche risk. Ryan O'Shaughnessy, CBJ Emergency Programs Manager, can you start that conversation for us? Thanks, Ashley.

Yeah, so as everyone is aware, shortly before 11:00 AM yesterday, the CBJ did issue an evacuation advisory for all known slide paths. We are continually monitoring those slide paths. We're monitoring ongoing avalanche, avalanches that are being observed in those paths, as well as monitoring for increasing or decreasing risk. Like Assistant Chief Russell said, we are working really hard with our partners to make sure that resources are staged in the appropriate places to respond to avalanches should they occur in the built or developed areas.

We have been seeing avalanches in the slide paths downtown. We've seen several on the Mount Juno slide paths and on Thayne, and our avalanche advisor will speak more to that in just a moment. I do wanna reiterate that the Red Cross Emergency Evacuation Shelter is a resource that remains open. Last night we did have 47 people stay at the American Red Cross shelter at Centennial Hall. We're really grateful for all of our partners who are making that happen.

You know, emergency preparedness and emergency response really is a whole community effort and we couldn't do it without the nonprofits and faith communities and individuals who are volunteering their time to support these evacuees at the American Red Cross shelter.

I also want to acknowledge that we did relocate the emergency warming shelter that CBJ operates in partnership with Saint Vincent de Paul, and our Deputy City Manager Robert Barr will speak a little bit more to that, to those operations later on in this briefing. For now, I'd like to invite our CBJ avalanche advisor, John Berset, to give a little bit more of a detailed update on our current avalanche problem.

Yeah, thanks, Ryan. I'm John Berset, CBJ Avalanche Advisor. Overnight, there wasn't a whole lot of change. We had a little bit of a lull in the weather where rain stopped and the temperatures cooled down a little bit. That helped to lock things up, so we didn't see a lot of overnight avalanche activity, but we are expecting things to ramp back up today.

As rain comes back in and freezing levels rise again, we'll be closely monitoring that and watching for signs of avalanches and reassessing after we see what's released and what is still able to release. We are going to try to do some reconnaissance of the upper start zones today to get a better determining factor on, on what has gone and what still has the capability capability of producing a large slide. So that's kind of where we're at. Things haven't changed. Hazard is still high, and we don't feel comfortable putting people back into their homes underneath those paths at this point.

Thanks, John. And before we take questions, I'll just add that we are fully aware that the avalanche problem is not the only hazard that we're seeing today. As this, as this storm continues, We are monitoring again the vertical build infrastructure, snow loads on roofs, all of the implications that come along with snow removal on streets and drains and hydrants. And we have subject matter experts to speak to that later on in this briefing.

But for now, I think I'll turn it back over to Ashley. Yeah, thank you, Ryan. I do see that we're starting to receive some questions in the chat, but I think we're going to hold those until we hear from each of our subject matter experts about their avalanche response and understanding and situation update. So with that, I will pass it to Pat Dreyer of Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities.

Thank you, Ashley. Thane Road was closed noon Friday, January 9th due to, I'm sorry, due to elevated avalanche hazard to the roadway. Since the closure, several large avalanches have been observed with avalanche debris near the roadway. Continued thaw above freezing temperatures to elevation combined with additional rainfall and el— is resulting in elevated avalanche hazard, just as John mentioned, particularly for loose wet and wet slab avalanches. Given these conditions, the hazard remains elevated above Thane Road, and we'll be conducting drone reconnaissance in partnership with CBJ this afternoon to further assess, uh, current conditions and avalanche occurrence before we make any changes to the closure status of Thane Road.

Thank you.

Thank you, Pat. Captain Stan Fields from U.S. Coast Guard, would you be willing to share an update on U.S. Coast Guard preparedness efforts?

Good morning. Captain Stan Fields with the U.S. Coast Guard. The Coast Guard continues to maintain readiness to support our partners in the event that there is some type of an emergency event, whether that's CCFR moving EMS around slide areas. And we really don't have anything else to add much further than that, but we are latched up with the IMT to make sure that we're communicating with partners and addressing any needs. So I'll stand by for any questions.

Thank you, Captain Fields. We, we sure are grateful to have the Coast Guard in partnership with us should the worst happen. We're also incredibly grateful for our partnership with Tlingit and Haida. Sabrina Grubitz, would you be willing to share an update on your preparedness efforts?

Good morning. As mentioned, my name is Sabrina Grubitz. I'm the Tlingit and Haida Public Safety Manager. As of now, our transportation and facilities These teams are continuing to stay the course and maintaining our buildings and facilities and properties as they are right now. We have had some measure of success in ensuring that our, our properties are draining properly and working with our partners here and making sure that water is not pooling up or backing up in any of those locations.

In addition to that, we continue to encourage our citizens and the community to heed and adhere to the avalanche warnings and messaging that has been going out. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Sabrina. And putting them on the spot a little bit, I'd like to see if there's any member from the State Emergency Operations Center that's like, would like to share anything about their operations or support efforts. We certainly are grateful to have the members of their team here on the ground supporting our efforts, both in the avalanche response and the storm recovery.

But happy to save that for Q&A as well, if you'd prefer to do that.

Hi, this is Lydia Copeland. I am the operation chief for for the state, and I just wanted to let you know that our SEOC is not stood up in, at JBear, but we do have several people on call and on standby in case there's any increase with needs or support, etc. So, and then I'll turn it over to, I believe, Julia. I think I cut her off. Sorry about that.

Sorry, that was me. I saw Jeremy Zydak talking, but I think he might have been on mute. Jeremy, did you want to jump in?

No, I think Lanita covered it. Thank you.

Great. Thank you so much. I think now we'll move to any questions about avalanche preparedness and response efforts, starting with Alex Solomon of KTOO. I think this is a question for both CBJ and Alaska DOT. What methods are you using to monitor the slide paths?

And about how many avalanches released over the last 36 hours. Maybe we'll start with, with Pat at DOT.

Sure. Thanks, Ashley. Along Thayne Road, we have an infrasound detection system that's been installed. So since our road closure yesterday at noon, we've detected between 8 and 10 unique avalanche events that have come near the roadway. I do have a visual of that that I can provide to share.

We did share that on our social media yesterday as well. We did not detect any additional avalanche activity overnight, but as John said, we're anticipating that to increase in the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Pat. Ryan and/or John, would you like to respond on behalf of CVJ?

John Berset's gonna be better prepared to field that question. Thanks, Ashley. Thanks, Ryan. Thanks, John. Yeah, no problem.

Currently, CBJ doesn't have the same infrared detection system that DOT has, but we are actually working on getting one here quickly. So we are more of a visual inspection on what has come down. We are still going to do the drone reconnaissance in partnership with DOT later today. That'll help give us a better picture of what has been released. As far as number of avalanches, they were well into the double digits on both sides of Mount Juneau.

We had multiple avalanches in the White Pass. We had multiple avalanches on Behrens Avenue, as well as multiple avalanches on what's called the Chopp Gully side. So anything that leads down towards the Fluveman Basin Road, I don't have the numbers on how many, but definitely well into the double digits yesterday leading into yesterday evening.

Thanks, John. I would just, I would just add to that that we are very, very grateful for our partnership with the state in helping us acquire some of those same resources that DOT uses for monitoring the slide path. That's that infrared avalanche detection system. And I also wanted to just add that we are working closely with the National Weather Service on all things, but especially gaining awareness of when we may be able to conduct helicopter operations, not for mitigation efforts, but for LiDAR, for getting field crews out. So right now, we do have an access issue based on weather conditions, and those operations will continue as conditions allow.

Thank you both.

This is a question from Jazz at the Geno Independent. How is the state currently helping with increased avalanche monitoring in response to the disaster declaration? I think Pat and John both shared quite a bit about the wonderful resources that the state has provided to help with our awareness, but anything else to add from the state of Alaska?

Okay, great. Oh, go ahead, Jeremy. The question was a little bit cut off for me. Could you repeat the first part of it? Of course.

How is the state currently helping with increased avalanche monitoring in response to the disaster declaration? I missed the avalanche part of it. I'll turn that over to DOT.

Anything to add from DOT?

Thanks, Ashley. In summary, I think we've mentioned it. We're assisting with drone resources as well as LiDAR flights when weather allows to, to better characterize what conditions we have out there, as Ryan just mentioned.

Thank you. And since we're on that topic, a question from Alex Solomon at KTOO: What is the state doing, or have you done over the last 36 hours to assist with disaster response? Alex, can I ask, is that question specific to avalanche, or is that more storm recovery?

Oh, I realize there's not really a way for her to respond to this, so I'm going to assume it's the latter. So I'm actually going to save that question and maybe, Jeremy, you could provide a summary when we get to our broader situation update. I've unmuted Alex if they're able to clarify really quick. Oh, hi, thanks. Yeah, I was asking more generally, basically just the list of what the state has provided in assistance.

Great. Thank you for that clarification. I think we'll save that for our Q&A at the end. It looks like those are the questions that we have related to the avalanche right now. But if we— please feel free to add additional, and we'll make sure to save those for the general Q&A.

This next topic is gonna be a big one. There's— with such big changes in weather, there's been a lot of changes here on the ground. I'm going to let Robert Barr of CBJ lead that conversation. But first, I want to make sure and give a moment back to Aaron Jacobs with the National Weather Service to talk some more specifically about, about the water impact. Aaron?

Yeah, yeah, thanks, Ashley. One thing I wanted to make sure that the community and everyone knows about that we do have a flood advisory out until 9:00 PM tonight. Due to all the poor drainage flooding that we've been seeing and reported across the region on the roads and then into people's homes from all the snow surrounding their homes. And we will reassess the situation later on this afternoon. We're going to extend that advisory out and we'll talk to, with the CBJ and DOT and Streets to find out if we are still seeing impacts.

And with that information, we will possibly extend that advisory or let it— we'll cancel it. But knowing those impacts is very important. So as Ashley was mentioning, please report any type of impacts you may be seeing to that web link that— or the email that they're notifying, or you can call the National Weather Service at the same time. Facebook's also good, but sharing your information, the impacts will help us provide more information to the public on what the current and future weather conditions can do in your backyard. So I'll just leave it at that.

Thank you very much, Ashley.

Thank you, Aaron. And the email address that Aaron was referring to is [email protected]. And Robert will have, I think, a little bit more information on other ways you can keep us informed on hazards near you. So I'll pass that to Robert Barr, Deputy City Manager at CBJ.

Thank you, Ashley. So yeah, significant, significant amount of stuff to cover here. So appreciate everyone bearing with us as we work through this. And I know we also have some subject matter experts on these topics that we'll bring in as needed as well. So I think the first thing I want to start off with is that following on what Aaron said about water and flooding, if folks have a flooding issue on a CBJ road, we have some phone numbers that we'd like you to reach out to.

So the first one is if you— is the first one is 586- 5256, and that's the number that we would like people to reach out during the day before 4 PM. It is staffed during the day up to 4 PM. If you have an urgent flooding issue on your road that is precluding access to that road and appears to be an emergent type of issue, please give us a call, the JPD non-emergency line, after 4:00 PM, and that is 586-0600. Another thing that I'll note around flooding is that while we have had and will continue to have streets crews out there working on clearing and making accessible storm drains as much as possible, those crews also have to prioritize road maintenance to keep roads themselves safe and passable. So, so they're doing multiple jobs.

And we are getting to those storm drains as quickly as possible. Um, and we recognize also that there are a lot of people out in the community helping us out with that. And so if you find yourself physically able to identify a storm drain, uh, we've shared a map, uh, that, that I, I don't have that URL off the top of my head, but I know it's out there. Members of the media, I know you've seen that. Um, if you can identify a storm drain and if you find yourself physically able of clearing that drain, that would be extremely helpful.

We know that is hard labor-intensive work, and so another option, especially if you notice a storm drain in particular that appears to have issues with it, right, it's blocked and there's some water pooling up, or it's blocked and, you know, it doesn't really rise to that level of you wanting to make a phone call, but you know that it still needs to be gotten to, that is something that you can email us about at [email protected]. Just send us a detail about where that drain is. A picture is super helpful if you can snap one and include that as part of that email, but we will make sure that those reports get along to our field teams who are working on clearing storm drains. So really, I can't emphasize enough the amount of support from individuals, both, you know, CBJ teams and just local residents that are out there doing, doing doing good work helping us as a whole community respond to this event. We are super, super appreciative.

We're also aware that water is starting to move into buildings and structures and basements, and we know that managing water is a lot to deal with. We know that water is very damaging to facilities.

It's important to document that happens. We really, we really encourage folks get photo and video evidence of that water intrusion happening, both for your own purposes for reporting those claims to your insurance, but also for our awareness so that we can communicate the damage that we're seeing throughout the community in every type of infrastructure, public, private, and commercial, up to the State Emergency Operations Center as we consider what those damages might entail in terms of kind of next steps as we, as we work to support each of our community members. We aren't quite ready, but we will soon be releasing a tool, just an easy online tool where people can go to report those damages to kind of increase our awareness of what's going on. But in the meantime, before we get that tool out, you can also email us detail about those damages you're experiencing again at emergencyresponse@ junoh.gov, and it's really helpful for us if you can include your phone number so that we can reach out if we need to. We're also working on clearing fire hydrants.

We know that is a big challenge. We've redirected crews from other departments to help our water team out in clearing those fire hydrants. We're making headway there. There is still work to do. And then I want to transition a little bit from talking about that horizontal infrastructure to the vertical infrastructure.

So Roof loads are a constantly evolving issue for us. We have structural engineers and teams supporting them out in the field analyzing, going back and reanalyzing, and then prioritizing that critical infrastructure, those roofs, based on our disaster response needs and based on our needs to keep essential services opening and providing those essential services to the public— emergency services, fire, police, water, wastewater, etc. So we've, of course, redirected resources to Centennial Hall to get that shelter open and keep it safely operating. The Red Cross is all hands on deck on that front and is being substantially supported by the whole community. Ryan talked about this a little bit, but we've seen just an outpouring of support everything from an anonymous donation of a whole lot of pizza to local residents, volunteers, faith communities, and locals themselves staffing that shelter.

So again, a great, great amount of appreciation for that. We've also had to move our cold weather emergency shelter off of Thayne because the Thayne cold weather emergency shelter is in that slide path and is not safe to operate until we can gain some assurance about decreasing avalanche risk there, which we don't have yet. So yesterday, a big effort of ours was to figure out a place for that shelter to go, which was significantly complicated by our roof loads. So there, we don't have, we didn't yesterday, and we still don't have a lot of facilities that have cleared, you know, have been cleared by our structural engineering team for large congregate shelter occupancy to safely house that function. We looked at every CBJ facility we have and a whole lot of facilities outside of the CBJ that we thought might be potentials.

We actually moved the shelter to Marie Drake midday yesterday and then learned about some concerns that, that, that made that not a tenable solution later midday. So, We, you know, we knew we had a gym roof cleared at Glacier Valley Elementary School, and that ended up being the only CBJ facility, JSD CBJ facility, that was, was tenable for that space. We know that the cold weather emergency shelter is not a compatible use with the way that an elementary school is used, right? And we will not have that shelter being operated, and we'll have it completely moved to a different location once Glacier Valley is ready to be used as an elementary school again and once kids are present. And of course, of course, we will make sure to always prioritize life and safety.

That is the reason why we moved the shelter off of Thayne in the first place. And of course, we will share that, that sort of through line of prioritizing life and safety will continue all the way through when the shelter is moved and the school is is cleaned and everything associated with the shelter is removed from it, and it is made safe and available for its good intended use as an elementary school. I wanted to give Superintendent Hauser a chance to talk here too, and then I will go on to talk a little bit more about, about roof loads at the hospital, and we'll talk with the hospital CEO as well. So, uh, Superintendent Hauser. Uh, yeah, thanks, uh, Robert.

I appreciate it. Frank Hauser, Superintendent, Juneau School District. I really don't have much more to say. I just wanted to take a moment and just say, you know, the district received an immediate request to assist our partners at CBJ, um, who also own our school facilities. And as Miss Barr said, Glacier Valley was completely empty.

There were no students, uh, or instructional staff present, and the facility will be fully returned for district use before it is again before school is in session. We had an empty gym for the night, and how could we have said no? When an emergency happens, we all pull together to help. The decision to use the gym was made quickly in response to an emergency and community need, and school was not in session. We have a proud tradition in Alaska of schools serving as community spaces in emergency situations, and I'm proud proud Juneau School District, in partnership and working with CUJ, was able to help and assist in this emergency.

Thank you.

Thank you, Frank. I also want to touch on the hospital a little bit. So before I do that, I just want to, I want to emphasize, I want to mention something I forgot to mention earlier, which is on the topic of snow loads on our roofs and the trend of what we're seeing. So yesterday, the general trend was that snow loads were still increasing, right, as we were seeing that snow absorb water and weights going up. Today, we don't have as much data as we'll have at the end of the day, of course, but preliminary data indicates that we're seeing a mixed trend.

So some, some still increasing roof weights and some decreasing. So, you know, it's a mixed trend, but it's a better trend than what we were seeing yesterday, which was predominantly increasing, and of course we have teams now working on roofs. We have a team at Mendenhall River Community School, we have teams working on Bartlett Regional Hospital as well. So Chief Executive Officer at the hospital, Joe Waner, if you want to give us a hospital update, that would be great. Thank you, Robert.

I'm Joe Waner, I'm the CEO of Bartlett Regional Hospital. We currently have several areas of our roofs that are closing in on limits. We have a team of roughly 60 people up there right now clearing the roof. If you can hear the stomping, they're working on our administrative building right now. So we predominantly focused on patient care areas that had the highest loads, and then we're kind of looking at buildings that are showing stress at this point, which would be our admin building.

So you'll see teams be flexing around from various areas. There is a rhyme and a rhythm to it. So it's just not random. We would do ask if you show up to the hospital and you need to receive services to not park next to the buildings. We will be offloading the roofs onto the areas next to the buildings.

We will try to put cones and barriers up to mark those areas, but I just ask everyone to stay out of those areas. I'd like to thank the city in working with us to get the contractors up to get this work done too. I appreciate that. You also see multiple— some of our parking spaces are closed at this point. We, with the massive amount of snow we had, we had a reduction in parking stalls.

We had some issues getting snow off our parking lot. We have dump trucks running around. We have a lot of heavy equipment on the property at this point clearing those. So at this point, everything's moving in the right direction. And so we don't anticipate any changes to services as of today.

I guess if there's any questions related to any of that.

Thank you, Joe. Very much appreciate that update. I'll close before turning it back over to Ashley. I'm sure we have some questions. Just reiterating that this is, this is a dynamic event.

It's changing rapidly. It's also unprecedented. You heard the National Weather Service, Aaron, talk a little bit about about that. The amount of snowpack followed by the amount of water is not something that we have dealt with in this capacity as far as we know historically. But we do have the right teams responding, and the community support and the support from our state government and local contractors and agency partners is outstanding.

So we are grateful for that and grateful for all teams that are out there working in the field. Ashley, I think that is, that is all I have, but happy for Q&A.

Thanks so much, Robert. I know there was a lot of information provided there, and we do have quite a few questions in the chat, but I would first like to give the opportunity to our other partners to share a similar update as to their storm recovery efforts here on the ground, starting with Vicki Roberts at Alaska DOT.

Thank you, Ashley. Vicki Roberts with Alaska DOT and PF. For a Juneau update, as of this morning, road conditions across the Juneau area are continuing to improve with warmer temperatures. Our Priority 1 roads— routes are mostly bare pavement with some localized ponding. Priority 2 routes are in fair condition with isolated icy patches in areas of ponding.

Priority 3 and 4 routes are icy with some ponding present. So our crews are actively sanding where needed, and operators are addressing larger localized flooding and ponding areas throughout the system. Where possible, we are pushing water back and taking proactive measures to open drainage to improve conditions. This work will continue throughout the day. Drivers should be prepared for changing conditions as we are seeing a variety of surface conditions across the road system.

If you encounter water on the roadway, slow down and approach it cautiously for your safety. The best advice is to slow down, stay alert, and allow for extra travel time. And for the latest road conditions, check 511 Alaska before traveling. And I did see a question in the chat, Ashley, and I'll just put the answer out there for After hours reporting for state roadways, we are asking that people continue to call the JPD non-emergency line, and they have after hours numbers to contact us and make a reporting. During business hours, you can leave a detailed message at 465-4655.

Again, 465-4655. 4655. Leave a detailed message, location, what's going on, and we will dispatch crew as needed. Thank you.

Thank you so much, Vicki. Sabrina, if I could pass it to you with, along with a question that's come in regarding a statement you said earlier about some measure of success. Their question is really, has there been any reported damages or flooding inside Tlingit and Haida buildings? Thank you, Ashley. At this time, we did have a small pipe break earlier in the week due to the decline in temperatures.

That was very quickly handled and dealt with by our teams. And at this time, we are not seeing any sort of repercussions inside of our buildings following that particular incident. Thank you.

Thank you, Sabrina. Is there anything else you'd like to add in terms of Tlingit and Haida storm recovery efforts moving forward?

Um, at this time, uh, we are very much, as mentioned earlier, staying the course of our activities, um, and continuing to create, uh, safer environments with the ice and different things around our buildings and facilities, as I know it is very slick out there.

Thank you so much. That's a, that's a great segue into our general Q&A portion. I'm looking through the questions now. And a question from Jazz at The Independent for, for both DOT and CBJ. Can you provide an update about roads or streets that are closed?

Due to Sam's— Assistant Chief Sam Russell's point about slippery and unsafe conditions. She's particularly asking about that stretch of Egan Drive near the high school that many of us drove through yesterday that had quite a bit of water on it. Can you— so we'll start with DOT since that's a DOT road, and then if anyone from CBJ wants to jump in on slippery roads or streets conditions that may be— that may have caused closures. Vicki? I'm going to defer that to Marcus since he was specifically involved in addressing that flooding.

Good morning. Marcus Zimmerman, State of Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. Ashley, could I ask you to repeat which question that was? Absolutely. Question from Jas at The Independent.

Can you provide an update about roads or streets that may be closed for slippery or unsafe conditions and any particular information you'd like to share about the stretch of Eagan near the high school? Okay, so I'll start a little bit backwards there. Eagan by the high school, we had a considerable pond in that section of road yesterday. We were able to get the drainage open, and currently there is good driving conditions there, no ponding at that location. As far as roads that are closed right now, Thane Road obviously due to avalanche hazard, and then the end of Glacier Highway is closed because there's a tremendous amount of snow on that road.

We do have a contractor that's working on opening that from Yankee Cove out to Echo Cove, but it is not passable at this point.

Other than that, that is everything that DOT has for actual closed roads due to current conditions.

Thank you, Marcus. Ryan, could you speak to the CBJ side of that question? Yeah, absolutely. Thanks, Ashley. So currently we haven't closed any roads due to the conditions of them.

I just want to remind everyone that there are some, some service interruptions in avalanche, in avalanche evacuation areas. Just reminding folks that bus stops between the federal building and Glacier, or excuse me, in the hospital on Glacier Highway are not being serviced. Those routes are still in effect and the buses are instead using Egan Drive to avoid avalanche exposure. But other, other than that, there are no closures in effect at this time.

Great, thank you, Ryan. I'm going to stay on the theme of road conditions, and I have two questions from James Brooks at the Alaska Beacon for DOT. The first is, what material is DOT using to improve traction, and has that changed over the course of the week? Uh, the second is, has DOT been using the side-by-side plow trailer this week? Yeah, Ashley, I'll take both of those questions.

Marcus Zimmerman, Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. So currently with the slippery conditions, ice with water on top of it, our tactic is to use sand. So we're out with sand trucks. It depends on the conditions, the weather patterns, things like that as to what tool we use as far as being able to work to get traction back. Sometimes it's just plowing, sometimes we do use brine, sometimes we use straight granular salt, and sometimes it's just sand.

So currently the conditions warrant just sand. If we apply brine right now. A brine is a product that is already in solution, so it would dilute way too quick with the current conditions. It does have its place and it works very effectively. Granular salt right now is not the best option for these conditions either.

So sand is what we're currently using. And then the other question about side-by-side plow, I am guessing that we're probably referring to a tow plow that we have here in Juneau. And we do have one, we do use it. I believe it did get stuck the other day. It plows a lot of snow, and the snow can get pretty heavy, and periodically it will get, you know, stuck just like any other piece of equipment that we're using to clear the roads.

So I can't confirm for sure, but it is very likely that, you know, it could have been stuck this last week in a certain condition out there.

Thank you, Marcus. And I might invite CBJ, Director of Engineering and Public Works, to speak to the CBJ side of that question in terms of materials used on the road for traction.

Hello, thank you, Ashley. On the CBJ side, it is really similar to everything that Marcus just said for the same reasons. Primarily though, we have been using sand and gravel in terms of improving traction on roads and some of the work that we've done for the parking lots of critical facilities such as the fire department and some of our schools. Thank you. Thanks, Denise.

While you're online, a quick follow-up from James Brooks. How are our stockpiles of sand and gravel and those resources or materials required to keep streets safe? Right now we're in good shape. We haven't had to stop doing any sanding work because of concerns about our stockpiles.

Thank you. And since I've got you, one more that I know is for you.

Many of us are aware, you know, there's impacts of the snowstorm all over the city and in all different ways, one of which is the fact that the recycling center has been closed for, I believe, a week now. Can you share a little bit about the status of the recycling center and the reasoning behind that closure? Sure. Thank you, Ashley. That is mainly a logistical issue of just there is so much snow in the recycling center area that there's just not enough place to move that snow.

And both the recycling center and the household hazardous waste center have the same kind of challenges with the snow, and we just need to clear space before we could allow the the public back into those areas. But we do apologize. We know that those are critical facilities that people really rely on, and we're working as hard as we can to, with our contractors, to get that cleaned up so that people can start using that, those facilities again.

Thank you so much, Denise. I'll think I'll go back to the question that Alex asked earlier in the call, which was for, for Jeremy Zidek in the State Emergency Operations Center, which is what is the state doing now, or have you been doing over the last 36 hours to assist in this disaster?

Hello. So we've been communicating with the Unified Command there in Juneau for a number of days. We've deployed an emergency manager management specialist down there to work closer with the unified command, and they're, they're there to see what resources may be needed, work with the State Emergency Operations Center to make sure that we get those resources to CBJ. We also have someone from the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs that's gone down there to kind of evaluate what help the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs could provide. We've received a number of resource requests from Juneau, and we're also working through those at this time.

We're standing by to make sure that if additional help is needed, we can send that down there quickly.

Thanks, Jeremy. While we have you, I But no, I just want to personally say that we're incredibly grateful for all the resources that the state has provided. And also ask, this is from Jazz at the Independent, can you clarify if Juneau's current disaster declaration allows people to apply for the individual assistance program for help with flooding damages inside their homes?

At this time, the individual assistance program has not been activated. We have a public assistance program that's activated, and that is to help local jurisdictions, nonprofits, tribes with their emergency protective measures. It reimburses them for those costs, and it can also open up other, other ways that we can help with our other state of Alaska agencies.

In addition to what we're doing at the SEOC, you've heard from the Department of Transportation with their avalanche and road clearing support, and then the Department of Environmental Conservation is also active. And we're kind of that— the State Emergency Operations Center is a gateway to all of the emergency response response capabilities that we have in the state.

Thank you, Jeremy. And kicking over to Robert really quick, I know earlier you previewed a tool that the city is putting together and you strongly encourage residents to document any damage and share it with us. Can you— would you like to speak a little bit to the— to how that connects to what Jeremy just shared? Yeah, I— thank you, Ashley, and I can't remember who asked this question, but thank you for asking that question. It was an Excellent prompt.

The reason, uh, one of the reasons why we've, uh, why we're creating that tool and why in the interim we're asking people to email us while we're getting that tool uploaded is because that data about damages is a critical piece of information for us in determining, um, whether and when, uh, to make a request for individual assistance. So that's, that's really why, uh, the reason behind why we, why we were asking for that data and why it's important for— well, it's one of the reasons why it's important for residents to document that damage. Of course, another very significant and important, maybe the most important reason, is for your insurance claims.

Thank you, Robert. And while we're talking about damage to buildings, we have two questions, one from James Brooks at the Alaska Beacon and another from Alex Solomon at KTOO. The first from James: Do we have any figures on the number of roof collapses? And the question from Alex, where are you seeing flooding impact so far? I don't want to speak for you, but I might— I have some assumptions that that's one of the big reasons why we're asking for folks to tell us about the damage they're seeing, but please feel free to share any numbers we do have.

Yeah, we're still working on collecting numbers. I mean, we are hearing the same anecdotal information about private and commercial roofs that everyone else is, primarily through social media. In terms of CBJ-owned or managed facilities, you know, we haven't thankfully had any roof collapses. We have seen some structural damage that we believe is related to roof loading, and we'll be— we are documenting that and we'll be including that part of a larger insurance claim related to this entire event and as part of any potential reimbursement through the public assistance that might be available to us to address those repairs.

Thanks, Robert. And while you're on, I know this is a question that's top of mind for many of us from James Brooks at the Alaska Beacon. It's still early, but do you have any tally of the financial cost for this disaster response? Yeah, thank you, James.

You know, it is still early, and we are working on pulling together all that information. I think all I can tell you right now is that it is going to be substantial. We're talking in the millions of dollars, not the hundreds of thousands of $1.5 million. Um, we are, uh, have been in daily communication, uh, sometimes more than daily communication with our insurer, uh, and our broker, uh, of that insurance. Um, we have, uh, engineers on site, uh, from, uh, those companies, uh, helping us do that structural assessment work to make sure that we have the documentation in order to be able to successfully submit those claims down the road, and of course we'll be seeking whatever reimbursement might be available to us through public assistance, and the State Emergency Operations Center folks who are here on the ground are assisting us with that work.

So it is, it is, it is a great question, and it is something that we are paying a lot of attention to, and I guess I'll just, I'll also note that while Two things, right? So, you know, there, there will be impacts for the Assembly, um, to, to address and make decisions about eventually as part of our FY27 budget process, or around the same time that we're dealing with the FY27 budget process. And that'll have an impact. Um, we do have reserves to deal with emergencies, and so that will be a tool that I'm sure the Assembly will, uh, will use or have available for its use in dealing with some of the financial impacts that we'll have from this event. I also wanna note though, and I think this is important, that our first priority is life safety and helping the community, you know, work its way through as a whole this event.

And finances matter, and of course we are taking those into account, But they are not the first priority. The first priority is life safety and ensuring that our critical infrastructure and facilities remain accessible and open and serving our community.

Thank you, Robert. We are now at 11:30, and I do want to be respectful of everyone's time, especially our operational folks that need to get back in the field. I will ask if we could sort of squeeze in a couple more questions and maybe wrap up by 11:35, if that's all right with everyone. I think I'm going to go over to a different topic, still probably for Robert. What is the plan for the warming shelter?

A question from Jazz at the Independent. If the avalanche risk is not decreased by the time schools reopen. Yeah, thank you, Jazz. So we are actively working today and will be actively actively working tomorrow on that plan. So there is no scenario where the warming shelter will continue to exist in a school once a school is in operation again.

So it will be moving from Glacier Valley. We are working on whether or not that move can happen today or if that move must happen tomorrow, but one of those two things is our goal for that operation. If we can't move it back to Thayne because of avalanche risk, then we will identify another non-school CBJ facility to operate that out of. And I wanna give a huge, huge thanks and kudos and just a moment of appreciation to St. Vincent de Paul and the team working out there. Their executive director, Jennifer Skinner, did and continues to do an amazing job of providing services to that population and preserving life, frankly, as we continue to need to be, you know, dynamic and move things around related to that operation.

And then Robert, really quickly, can you speak to the status of the Marie Drake Building after the roof—. Yeah, I can. Thank you. So, you know, Marie Drake, it's similar to many of our buildings. It has snow on the roof.

It's an old building. Um, this— that, at that particular facility, the snow load has not exceeded its design capacity, but we're still concerned about it because design capacity is a capacity measurement that is, is true when a building is built, and there are safety factors there. But when our engineers were doing those assessments towards the end of the day yesterday, after we had originally made the assessment that it looked okay, the concern was just elevated, right? So we didn't use that facility out of an abundance of caution. I don't have any reason to believe that Marie Drake is at risk right now of collapse or anything like that, but it is just one of many CBJ facilities that we are continually assessing, evaluating as this— as the snow load situation changes.

Thanks, Robert. And fair to say that's true of City Hall as well? That's a question from Lori Craig at the Independent. Yeah, exact same story for City Hall. Thank you.

Okay, now I'm gonna head over to Joe Warner at Bartlett Regional Hospital. Joe, you said the roof load is nearing capacity. What happens if it does? And, well, I'll leave it there. And what would happen if it does?

Well, I guess we'd have to monitor that and talk to facilities and engineering on what our next steps would be at that point. Point. Uh, we're actively shuffling the people around, so hopefully we don't exceed those numbers. But, um, we have engineering on site from CBJ, so they've been bringing those resources down. So we're actively monitoring all our buildings at this point.

And if the hospital were to need to implement changes to services as a result of snow load concerns, what would those be? What services will we change, or is that the question? It'd be reduction of services down depending on the area and what actually transpired. We do have buildings that are on the, you know, outside of the hospital we can transfer services to. So that'd be on a case-by-case basis, I guess.

Thank you so much. And 1 minute left. I've got 2 questions for Aaron Jacobs at the National Weather Service from Alex Solomon at KTOO. Alex is asking what information would be helpful to include in reports to the National Weather Service about weather conditions that you, you invited residents to provide information to the National Weather Service. What information is helpful to include?

Oh, thanks, Alex, for that question. Yeah, it was just more of the helping to understand the range and the severity of the impacts around the region that helps collect that information for CVJA and everyone else. So it's just any type of information of the impacts they are seeing, the time and the location and we— Weather Service usually sends out a local storm report, and so that can be also a benefit for CBJ to look out afterwards. But I think, for all intents and purposes, for reporting impacts and damage, please go to the email address that the city is trying to collect all that stuff through. But there is an avenue that Weather Service can pass that information on to CBJ also.

Thank you, Aaron. And another question for you from Alex: We, KTOO, has received some questions about rivers, especially the Mendenhall, and streams flooding. Are there any concerns about stream flooding at this point? Yeah, thanks for that question. At this time, we're with the amount of snow and the freeze-up prior to it, we're not really seeing any, what we'll call, river or stream flooding at this time.

Most of it's just the poor drainage. Now, if we, throughout the early weekend, the weekend, we are going to continue to see this precipitation follows rain, and we're going to continue to see the snow melt and compact. And maybe by the midweek we might have some river issues, and that'll be on the smaller streams, any like Jordan Creek, Gold Creek, but nothing— or Montana Creek— but nothing on our bigger streams like Meadowhall or anything like that. But we are monitoring the situation, and— but yes, at this time there is no real concerns for any of our rivers. This time.

Thank you, Aaron. Thank you all so much for joining today, especially our subject matter experts and our members of the media. We really appreciate and rely on you to help our community understand the risk that's ahead of us, how we're responding, and how they can share information with us and the information we need them to know to keep themselves safe. We do not have another press briefing scheduled, but we will be sure to reach out If we do, of course, we'll reach out if conditions change significantly on any of these topics and invite you to continue to send questions our way. But as a reminder, please report damage or any concerns to [email protected] unless you are in danger or experiencing an emergency, and then of course, please call 911.

Earlier, there was a reference of the map that shows where CBJ hydrants and storages are located. I just wanted to follow up to share that that URL is bit.ly/CBJhydrants, and I'm happy to share that as well. Thank you all for being on the call. We, we again appreciate, appreciate this partnership, and please all take good care.

Thank you.