During a phone call on Thursday, Alaska U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski said that Wrangell’s been on her mind because it’s been one year since the landslide. She said the disaster is something people can’t easily shake if they’ve seen it.
“This summer, when I was there visiting my folks, we went out on the boat and saw it from a further distance and different perspective,” the Republican lawmaker said. “It’s just this very physical reminder of a scar and a wound.”
Coincidentally, Murkowski said she spoke with the Senate Appropriations Committee about disasters and legislation that fiscally supports updated monitoring systems for all natural disasters on Nov. 20, the year anniversary of the landslide that killed six people.
“To talk about just some of the disasters that we’ve seen in Alaska in this past year – Wrangell and Ketchikan with the landslides but previously the deadly slides in Haines and Sitka, and the floods up north,” she said.
The talk was mostly about the need for better weather forecasting through additional sensors. She said she’s been working on a bill with Democratic Senator Alex Padilla from California for several months.
If passed, the Improving Atmospheric River Forecasts Act would direct the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to create an accurate forecast system. This will predict the timing and predictability of atmospheric river storms. Atmospheric rivers are known as “rivers in the sky” and can vary in size and shape. They can cause excessive rain, floods and landslides, like in Wrangell last year. State geologists found excessive rain in a short time was a major contribution to that event.
“Because we just introduced it right at the end of this year, it’s at the point where we’re not having hearings on new bills,” Murkowski said. “What we wanted to do was get it out there in the public for consideration.”
She said they’ll reintroduce it when the new Congress convenes in January.
The support would improve monitoring systems for other natural disasters
This support would also improve monitoring systems for other natural disasters throughout the nation, like a bill introduced earlier this year on earthquake hazards mitigation.
“So it’s drought, it’s floods, it’s hurricanes,” Murkowski said. “It is tornadoes, it’s landslides, it’s fires, fires are everywhere.”
She said the legislation is sparking conversation and feedback.
“As we work to advance this next year, we will be reaching out to communities that have been impacted that know and understand in real time, why this would be beneficial,” Murkowski said. “So it goes both ways, they can contact us, but we’ll also be reaching out to them.”
She said she’ll be able to talk about this with Wrangell’s Borough Manager Mason Villarma when he’s in Washington D.C. on Dec. 3.
