Notes from the Landslide

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were a direct result of a declared disaster and for which other
assistance is either unavailable or inadequate.
Gorman said the state is sending a team next week to walk city
officials and individuals through procedures for financial help.
He said the city is ready, and has been keeping track of expenses
in the ways recommended by the state.
“They’ve been very helpful to us,” Gorman said.
Sitka Fire Department Assistant Chief Al Stevens, the incident
commander for the landslide emergency, said Friday marked
the final day of the “operations center” at the fire hall. “We’re
pretty much done,” he said. “We’ve demobilized everyone, including
me.”
This marks a “return to normalcy,” although “mounds and
mounds” of paperwork remain to be worked through, he said.
Stevens said he’s still calculating the number of workers and
volunteers who participated in the response, from fire hall and
police and other city employees, to the hundreds of volunteers
who manned roadblocks at Kramer Avenue or cooked meals, to
the state and federal workers from Sitka and out of town.
Stevens said he has 379 workers and volunteers in his count, but
expects that number will top 400 by the time he’s finished.
“We called in a lot of people, a lot of agencies, from here, Ju-