Adelyn Baxter

The Alaska School Activities Association has approved a request from the Juneau School District to combine its high school football teams and cheer squads beginning next fall.

The request was approved by a 4-1 vote at Thursday’s ASAA Board of Directors meeting. It allows the district to combine the Juneau-Douglas Crimson Bears and Thunder Mountain Falcons into one team. That means TMHS students will be able to play for JDHS while remaining enrolled at their own school.

Director of Student Services Bridget Weiss said the district must wait for a decision on which conference the team will play in. The combined TMHS and JDHS student bodies will likely bump the team up a division, she said.

“Once we know what conference we’re in, that will give us some information to start formulating what the season is going to look like both fiscally and logistically,” Weiss said. “And then we’ll move through the process of working with kids and families and coaches in order to put together a plan for the fall.”

Weiss said the primary reasons the district made its request had to do with safety and participation concerns. The number of students signing up to play football for both Juneau teams has declined in recent years, forcing coaches to play younger, less-experienced students against teams with older and larger players.

Both teams were also operating at a deficit at the beginning of the 2017 season: TMHS had a negative account balance of more than $100,000 while JDHS was short almost $6,000.

The sole vote against the motion came from board representative Andrew Friske. Friske is the residential and activities principal at Mt. Edgcumbe High School in Sitka and represents Region 5, which is Juneau’s region. He said other schools in the region were concerned that Juneau’s request would leave other teams at a disadvantage.

In the past, schools traveling to play Juneau teams have then taken the ferry to play Ketchikan. Changing divisions would alter that, Friske said.

“Combining programs would cause them to possibly bump up into the large school division, leaving Ketchikan the only school down in Region 5. And I think that was the main reason why 10 of the schools did not support this,” he said.

Executive Director of ASAA Billy Strickland said there was some concern at Thursday’s meeting that this decision could set a precedent for other Alaska schools.

“Other states for quite a while have had the ability for even their larger schools to co-op in order to save costs and so forth,” Strickland said. “So while it’s precedent-setting, I believe overall the board doesn’t believe that’s a bad thing.”

Strickland added that the decision means the board will have to take a look at its classification system for high school football. ASAA currently has three divisions determined by school size, but it may need to adjust that in order to balance the number of schools at each level.

Weiss pointed out that of the 20 schools in the Southeast region that weighed in on the school district’s request, only three have football programs. Two of those are Juneau’s. The other is Ketchikan.

“And that speaks volumes to how challenging it is to find the capacity to run football out of Southeast Alaska,” Weiss said.

She said the district will know which conference the team will play in later in the month.

For the second year running, members of the U.S. Coast Guard Sector Juneau put on a haunted house for the community.

Entrance was free, but donations of canned goods for the local food bank were welcome. Chief Petty Officer Mahire A’Giza estimated more than 500 pounds were donated by nearly 700 visitors to the haunted house, which was open Thursday, Friday and Saturday night.

KTOO’s Adelyn Baxter stopped by for the final night to find out just how good of a scare Juneau thrill-seekers were getting.

Residual damage from Friday’s rainstorm continues to affect roads and trails around Juneau.

The Calhoun Avenue bridge below Cope Park, which was closed Friday morning following a mudslide, remained closed this afternoon.

CBJ Streets, Fleets and Transit Superintendent Ed Foster said the mudslide washed debris against the gate under the bridge, barricading the entrance that allows inspectors access.

Foster said the city has no reason to believe the bridge is damaged, but it needed to be inspected to be sure.

The city hopes to have the road open by the end of the day Monday.

The Flume Trail above downtown Juneau also remains closed after multiple slides and precariously leaning trees left the area unsafe.

It will likely remain closed for about two weeks, said Debbie Driscoll, spokeswoman for Alaska Electric Light & Power Company.

In this newscast:

• Alaska soldier Jacob M. Sims was killed Saturday in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan,
• and Juneau residents and roads dry out from Friday’s record-setting rains.

As the Juneau area dried out over the weekend, residents were able to take stock of the damage from Friday’s record-setting rain.

According to the National Weather Service, a total of 3.3 inches of rain fell on downtown Juneau over a 24-hour period Friday. Juneau International Airport saw 2.51 inches. Water pooled in some parking lots downtown and in the Valley before it drained off.

No injuries were reported.

One of the areas most affected by the storm was the neighborhood surrounding Jordan Creek. The creek crested at 11 feet Friday, higher than ever previously reported.

Nat Nipataruedi lives on Cascade Street near Jordan Creek. Her yard and the crawl space under her house flooded Friday. She said she has never seen the creek that high in the 12 years she and her family have lived in the neighborhood.

“And there was so much water flowing out of Jordan Creek and it was so high that it was actually backing up on Glacier Highway, where cars would have to slow down or move to the middle of the road because they were afraid of being submerged when they were driving,” Nipataruedi said.

Nipataruedi said water filled the crawl space beneath her house before she and her husband were able to rig up their pump. They had to pump the water into their bath tub at first since the area around their house was flooded. By Saturday morning, the yard had drained. As of Sunday, the crawl space was still a work in progress.

“We’re scared of mold, that’s what we’re scared of is that the humidity and all the wetness is gonna get into the insulation, into the wood of the joists and all that underneath and we’re gonna get a mold problem. And we can’t have that,” said Nipataruedi.

Fire Chief Richard Etheridge said Capital City Fire/Rescue responded to a number of calls for minor mudslides on roads Friday. He could not remember seeing creeks this high in recent years.

“It’s not unheard of, we had some flooding like this some years ago … real similar flooding, especially out in the valley,” Etheridge said. “But this is the first time, you know, this administration has dealt with some widespread flooding like that here in the valley.”

The Flume Trail along Gold Creek remained closed Sunday. AEL&P said in a tweet Saturday that the trail sustained storm damage and was closed to non-essential traffic until it could be repaired.

Safety notice: the flume trail sustained storm damage and is closed to non-essential traffic. Please avoid area until repairs can be made.

— AEL&P (@AELPJUNEAU) October 28, 2017

Friday’s rains were the remnants of Tropical Cyclone Lan.

A U.S. soldier from Alaska was killed in a helicopter crash in eastern Afghanistan on Friday.

The Department of Defense released the name of Chief Warrant Officer 2 Jacob Michael Sims on Sunday. Sims died of wounds sustained in the crash in eastern Logar Province that also injured six other crew members. He was 36.

Sims was born in Oklahoma and enlisted in the U.S. Army the day before his 18th birthday, according to his U.S. Army biography. He was assigned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as a combat engineer after completing basic and advanced individual training. He was later assigned to Fort Wainwright, Alaska, as a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot.

Sims volunteered to serve in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment, also known as the Night Stalkers, in 2014. He was assigned to Alpha Company 4th Battalion on Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state at the time of his death. He was a veteran of tours in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan and received numerous awards and decorations including an Air Medal, a Joint Service Commendation Medal and an Army Achievement Medal.

“Jacob lived by a creed that few understand and even fewer embody,” said Colonel Philip Ryan, Commander of Sims’ regiment, in a statement. “He will not be forgotten and his legacy will endure through his family, friends and fellow Night Stalkers.”

On Sunday, Gov. Bill Walker ordered that U.S. and Alaska flags throughout the state be flown at half-staff for the next five days to honor Sims.

Details of the crash have not been released by the Defense Department, other than to say it is under investigation and was not caused by enemy fire.