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Southeast Region Crews Continue Battling Mudslides

 

September 23, 2009
Wednesday


Petersburg, Alaska - Maintenance and operations crews from the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities' Southeast Region are doing battle with Mother Nature this week in Petersburg following mudslides.

Petersburg experienced a mudslide Sunday at mile point 5.4 of the Mitkof Highway. That mudslide littered the highway with trees and other debris. Crews cleared the road after only a few hours.


jpg  crew clears debris from Petersburg's Mitkof Highway

A DOT&PF crew clears debris from Petersburg's Mitkof Highway Tuesday morning following several days of rainfall-caused slides.
Official DOT&PF photo courtesy Doug Jenny, Southeast Region


An additional slide covered part of the Mitkof Highway this morning some time after midnight at mile point 4.5. Responding crews found a 36 inch cross culvert buried under about three feet of rock and trees, along with almost six inches of water washing over the road.

A second slide struck Mitkof Highway at about 5 a.m. today at mile point 17.5. There, crews came upon a slide covering about a 50-foot section of highway that was three feet deep. The crews cleared the road and reopened one lane to traffic within two hours and both lanes by 9 a.m.

Cleanup operations are expected to last throughout the week.

As of Tuesday, the Petersburg area received a reported three inches of rain since Sunday.

 

 

Source of News:

Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities
www.dot.state.ak.us

 

 

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