President Joe Biden approved a disaster declaration for the major landslide that affected parts of the Kenai Peninsula earlier this year. The declaration states that a major disaster exists in the state and ordered federal assistance to supplement state, tribal, and local recovery efforts in the Lowell Point community that was affected by the landslide on May 7, 2022.
Earlier this year, Public Assistance was activated by Governor Dunleavy for the 2022 Lowell Point Landslide as well as KPB Mayor Charlie Pierce signing a disaster declaration, in addition to the City of Seward issuing a disaster declaration. The previous assistance was designed to help communities, government organizations, and eligible non-profit organizations make repairs to utilities, public buildings, and other critical infrastructure damaged by the declared event.
Brenda Ahlberg with the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management tells KSRM:
“What it means is that FEMA will be able to help sustain some of the reimbursable costs. Typically, how that works is that the state has to provide documentation to meet the funding thresholds that then are provided to the president for consideration. The landslide is in addition to other disasters that happened at the same time. The state was able to make that a combination of areawide impacts that was submitted and that was how they were able to meet those thresholds.”
Ahlberg said that the disaster declaration doesn’t really change anything at the Kenai Peninsula Borough level:
“We’ve still submitted our costs for reimbursements, it’s just now the funding source is changed. Typically, as I’ve said before, 75% of it will be reimbursed through FEMA and then 25% of the costs will be reimbursed through the state division of homeland security.”
Ahlberg provides an update on the area where the landslide was:
“We’re definitely in monitoring status. This is impacting certainly our community of Lowell Point, but also those individuals who work either in Lowell Point or in Seward use the road for their daily needs and essential services. We’re working in conjunction with the city, how we’ll be looking at long-term mitigation projects of equal importance. We’re staying in regular contact as far as what that’s going to look like and how we’ll revisit that this fall and then most importantly that we’d keep the community engaged so that they’re part of the mitigation process as well.”
The landslides from May were approximately 300 feet wide, which closed Lowell Point Road for an extended period of time, preventing residents from getting to and from Seward unless they took a water taxi shuttle.
Federal funding is also available on a cost-sharing basis for hazard mitigation measures statewide.
Deanne Criswell, Administrator, Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), Department of Homeland Security, named Yolanda J. Jackson as the Federal Coordinating Officer for Federal recovery operations in the affected areas.
Additional designations may be made at a later date if requested by the state and warranted by the results of further damage assessments.
Photo credits – courtesy of the White House social media page.