A landslide triggered by heavy rain and wind took down trees next to an apartment building in downtown Juneau late Wednesday night. Although this slide didn’t damage homes or hurt anyone, people living in the building are calling it a near miss.
On Thursday afternoon, Dave Bonilla stood outside the Strasbaugh Apartments on Gastineau Avenue smoking a cigarette and gazing at a gash in the mountainside adjacent to the building. He has lived there for more than five years.
The night before, a torrent of soil, rocks and large trees slid down Mount Roberts, barely missing the building. Bonilla said he really didn’t know what had happened.
“I have no idea,” he said, laughing. “I was asleep, and it came down, I guess woke everybody else in the building up — but I was out.”
Monica Johnson also lives there with her husband and two young children. She was at work, listening to the police scanner, when the landslide struck.
“I hear on the dispatch saying that 265 [Gastineau Avenue] just reported that a tree and some boulders came down and hit the apartment building next to their house,” she said. “So I’m looking at Google Maps, going, ‘oh my gosh, it’s on Gastineau Street.’”
All of the residents were safely evacuated around 11 p.m. This isn’t the first time they have had to evacuate.
A landslide occurred in the same spot last summer. The scar is still visible on the mountainside. Juneau, and Gastineau Avenue in particular, are prone to landslides. The street is in a severe landslide hazard zone, according to maps the city commissioned in 2022 but didn’t adopt.
Gastineau Avenue has a long history of landslides. In 2022, a landslide hit three homes and knocked out power on the street. In 1936, Juneau’s deadliest landslide killed 15 people and buried parts of downtown in thick mud. And back in 1920, a landslide destroyed 16 buildings on Gastineau Avenue and South Franklin Street, killing four people.
Looking at the mountain, Johnson said Wednesday night’s landslide has her family looking for a more secure place to live.
“All of this has happened to us several times. Anything can come down,” she said. “Like, those two trees on the side, they kind of creep me out, because if those were to fall, they could smash right into our building.”
Ryan O’Shaughnessy is the emergency program manager for the City and Borough of Juneau. After the landslide, he went to the building with first responders from Capital City Fire/Rescue to assess the danger.
“They looked up the slide and identified a bunch of loose material further up the slide path,” he said. “So, some more trees with exposed root wads up the slide path.”
O’Shaughnessy said that because more rainfall was expected overnight Wednesday, he was concerned it could cause more soil and trees to slide downhill. That’s when the city decided to evacuate the building.
He said the city planned to open an emergency shelter, but the owner of the building booked hotel rooms for the 15 displaced residents instead.
The city lifted the evacuation order around 10 a.m. Thursday. O’Shaughnessy returned to the building in the morning to assess the damage.
“Very, very little, if any damage to the building at all,” he said.
Last year’s landslide caused more damage. Johnson said a tree smashed the electrical box and damaged the foundation. Her family was displaced for more than two months while the building was being repaired.
O’Shaugnessy said there isn’t a way to predict landslides in Southeast Alaska yet, but when emergency responders and planners can assess the site and see an imminent threat, they issue evacuation warnings to keep people safe.
