KFSK - Petersburg

Petersburg’s third COVID-19 outbreak is on its way to becoming its worst, and it’s stressing the school district and local medical center.

There are 50 active COVID-19 cases in Petersburg now, 17 of them in schools. There are also 99 pending test results through the medical center, so providers are expecting more cases.

The first week of November was a rough week, says Phil Hofstetter, CEO of the Petersburg Medical Center.

“Starting on Monday, we just got hammered with cases,” he said.

He says the center’s staff is struggling to test and vaccinate people as well as take care of patients like they normally would.

“Our staffing is super thin. We have people working incredibly long hours,” Hofstetter said.

And Hofstetter says they lose staff every outbreak from burnout.

“No question, direct correlation to outbreaks,” Hofstetter said. “It’s super hard to do this. Fielding the calls, people are angry, we can’t get the messaging right — we’re providing too much information, we’re providing too little information. We can’t get the tests turned around. You know, it all gets to our staff.”

The Petersburg School District is also dealing with staff pressure says Superintendent, Erica Kludt-Painter.

“They are tired,” she said. “When these cases rise it creates a lot of extra work. It adds a huge layer of stress on everyone.”

Kludt-Painter says a lot of staff are pulling extra shifts and taking over different classes. Some students are quarantining at home and attending school virtually, so teachers are tasked with hybrid classrooms both online and in-person.

She says she’s not sure how much longer they can sustain the extra load.

“It’s really happening fast this week for sure,” Kludt-Painter said. “And right now our staffing is on the verge.”

The school district is responsible for contact tracing among students and staff, which is a directive from the state. Kludt-Painter says they’ve seen how much events and activities outside of the schools are affecting students.

“We are definitely being impacted by those, and it’s taking our kids out, you know, for eight to ten days at a time. Which is definitely having an impact on their learning and their time away from their peers — and certainly has an impact on their families,” Kludt-Painter said.

Local medical providers, like Dr. Selina Burt, have linked the current outbreak to gatherings in the community as well as travel.

“We have had people coming in and out for medical reasons, leaving the island and coming back, and part of it is related to that,” Burt said. “We’ve had some community events with churches and schools that look like they’re related to some of the spread.”

The medical center is low on rapid tests and is sending most tests out of town. The hospital gets an allotment of 120 rapid cartridges a month from the state, which they’ve been saving them for high-risk individuals. Which means some residents with symptoms are waiting days for their results.

Burt says people should be patient and stay in quarantine.

“If you have one person in your household that is confirmed positive, just assume that all of those other tests that have been sent out are going to be positive as well,” she said.

Unfortunately, it looks like the outbreak won’t slow down any time soon.

There were several gatherings around Halloween, and Burt says cases from those events are likely to surface in the coming days.

A multimillion-dollar road project on Kupreanof Island in Southeast Alaska is finished, the Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities said.

The state spent $40 million to extend and upgrade the remote road outside of the Southeast Alaska village of Kake across the northern side of the island to a new boat ramp about 12 miles from Petersburg. DOT construction project manager Garrett Paul said the road opened to the public on Friday.

“It finished up on Saturday with the last remaining items of work which were redecking and reinstalling new bridge rails on existing bridges out there and demobilizing the camp,” Paul said. “So the project is done and the contractor is no longer on site.”

International company Kiewit built the roughly 5 1/2 miles of new road along with upgrading over 20 miles of existing roadway on that part of the island. The cost of the construction work was around $34 million. The remainder of the 2012 legislative appropriation went toward planning, design and oversight on the project.

“The bridge work that occurred in the last couple weeks was extra based on some remaining funds that we had,” he explained. “The bridges that were out there are 20 years old or more and they needed some help. So we did that. We also put out some signage. We did an extra culvert for Fish and Game for fish passage. We tried to consume the project funds by enhancing the roadway whether it was existing or the new.”

The $40 million in state funding was secured by Sitka Republican Sen. Bert Stedman. He championed the project as a way to improve connections between Petersburg and Kake and the economies of the two communities. It was questioned and opposed by residents in both communities, along with the tribal government in Kake and environmental groups. Petersburg’s assembly sent letters and resolutions asking for hearings on the project but those never happened.

Paul said some motorists are already using the new road and said it’s an upgrade from an average gravel road through the forest.

“Especially the new work that we did, it has an 18-foot width,” he said. “It has pullouts intermittently. The existing road that we tied into, I think we improved four miles of existing road on the Kake side and then we improved a lot of the road network because of construction equipment and needing to move that around. So I guess to connect the dots we did a lot of road improvement just to move around on the island.”

Workers installed directional signs to guide motorists along the roughly 42 miles from Kake to the new boat ramp at Twelvemile Creek. DOT has no plans to plow the road so it will only be usable when it’s not covered with snow. The state likely would fix washouts or other damage.

There’s a parking area near the new boat ramp on the eastern end of the road for vehicles and trailers. A gravel pad remains where Kiewit had its several dozen workers based during the construction on the eastern side of Portage Bay.

Petersburg’s borough assembly Tuesday passed a resolution seeking changes in operations and permitting for precious metal mines in British Columbia near salmon rivers that flow into Southeast Alaska.

It’s the latest in a series of statements the local government has made expressing concern about water quality and oversight of Canadian mines that have the potential to impact the water and fish of this region. This resolution asks for a permanent ban on the use of mine tailings dams and a pause on permitting for new mine projects until there’s an agreement between the U.S. and Canada on protecting rivers from mining pollution.

Petersburg resident and former state fish biologist Brian Lynch is with Rivers Without Borders, and he urged passage of the statement. He said that Canada often seeks reductions in commercial fishing in Alaska, an analogy brought up earlier in the day.

“They do this because they have an equal seat at the treaty table with us, where they can present their positions on our salmon harvests,” Lynch said. “That is their prerogative and their right to do so within the treaty process. That is exactly the sort of process and right that this resolution is seeking. The pause in mine development and permitting sought by this resolution is have time to develop binding international agreement on watershed protections developed by all jurisdictions in these shared transboundary watersheds.”

The assembly also heard from representatives with the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission and Salmon Beyond Borders.

Assembly member Bob Lynn was not in support of the resolution as drafted. He compared it to British Columbia asking Alaska to shut down a major portion of its economy. Lynn had worked to come up with a different statement.

“Rather than try to tell Canada what specific mining policy they need, I think we should make a recommendation on the science, reducing risk of dam tailing failures, sustaining fisheries in both countries, monitoring and recommending that a plan be developed and a way forward that begins to reduce the risk on both current and future operations,” Lynn said.

Petersburg’s assembly has also passed resolutions and letters on the topic in 2014, 2017 and 2019. This one seeks to hold mining companies responsible for clean up of polluting mine, like the Mount Polley mine in central British Columbia or Tulsequah Chief mine near a tributary of the Taku River.

Assembly member Jeff Meucci supported the resolution because of the importance of the fishing industry to Petersburg’s economy.

“I would hate to have a mining accident up one of these rivers have some kind of impact to these local communities and we are just kind of hanging on by a thread with the small boat commercial fisheries and the big boat commercial fisheries,” Meucci said.

The vote was 5-2 in favor of the resolution, with Lynn and mayor Mark Jensen voting no.

Hunters have set a new record for the month-long moose season on the islands and mainland of central Southeast Alaska.

The season ended Friday, Oct. 15, and hunters reported killing 129 bulls around Wrangell, Kake and Petersburg. That’s two more than the previous record set in 2019.

Nearly half this year’s haul, or 61 moose, came from Kupreanof Island. Hunters reported 29 legal moose shot in the Kake area, along with another three that did not meet the state’s antler requirements. Outside of Kake, the remainder of Kupreanof produced another 26 legal bulls and three more illegals.

Nearby on Kuiu Island, hunters harvested 21. And harvest on the Stikine River near Wrangell came on strong in the late season with a total of 20 legal moose and one illegal.

Hunters also had success in mainland bays north of Petersburg. Farragut Bay had seven legal bulls and one illegal. Three were taken in Thomas Bay, three near Port Houghton and another one from elsewhere on the mainland.

There were also five shot on Wrangell Island, three legals and two illegals on Mitkof Island and one legal bull from Woewodski Island as well.

The 10 illegal moose are a little lower than average. It’s typically about 10% of the total, but this year is under 8%.

Hunters had until Wednesday, October 20 to report their kills to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. Others who were unsuccessful or did not hunt have until Oct. 30 to turn in reports. Fish and Game issued 1,023 permits for the registration hunt this year, just short of the most recent five year average.

A Kake man who was reported missing on Saturday was found dead near the small Southeast community on Monday.

Alaska State Troopers say 55-year-old David Dalton was last seen just after noon on Friday, Oct. 15. He was reported missing to troopers on Oct. 16, and his pickup truck was discovered near Sitkum Creek that day. Local search teams found some items belonging to Dalton about 50 yards from his truck.

Searchers also learned about a possible sighting of an emergency flare in the area of the community’s landfill, but a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter was not able to locate any signs of people there.

Sitka Mountain Rescue and two K-9 teams with the Juneau-based SEADOGS helped the Coast Guard with the search. One of those K-9 teams found Dalton’s body just before noon on Monday, Oct. 18 about two and a half miles from his truck.

Troopers say it appears that Dalton succumbed to the elements. His body has been sent to state medical examiner’s office for an autopsy.

Local temperatures dropped into the 20s and 30s over the weekend.

The COVID pandemic has limited medical services in Alaska. Now, with the flu season beginning, local health care providers say the problem could get worse, and they’re urging people to get vaccinated.

“There’s definitely some concern about how bad the flu season might be and what that’s going to do in relationship to COVID,” said Dr. Cortney Hess of the Petersburg Medical Center. “Every winter we struggle with people that are so sick with the flu that they need the ICU. And so, when we think about putting flu ICU patients on top of COVID ICU patients, we get worried.”

Moving patients out of Petersburg has been a challenge in recent months. Hess says some hospitals that normally take patients for specialty services are at capacity with COVID patients. She says she’s had to spend hours on the phone calling hospitals that say they have no beds.

“And I just keep calling and pushing and pleading,” she said.

Hess says COVID-19 patients often stay on ventilators for weeks, which can create a logjam for hospital beds.

Hess says the hospital is encouraging people to get the flu shot, which they can get at the same time as their COVID-19 vaccine or booster shot. Flu vaccines change every year according to the strains predicted to be circulating.

“It’s only going to build layers upon layers of protection,” Hess said. “They do their best guess about which flu strains are going to be the most prevalent, but you’re still getting protection from last year’s flu shot for some of the other strains that are still going to be around.”

Anyone over the age of six months is eligible for the flu vaccine. People over 65 can get a special version of the shot that is a little stronger.

Petersburg’s last COVID-19 outbreak started to decline during the first week of October, going from a 39 cases to 21. Petersburg Medical Center CEO Phil Hofstetter says a variety of factors helped.

The school district scaled up its testing and contact tracing, the borough announced an emergency proclamation and hospital staff worked extra hours. Hofstetter says many hospital departments helped with testing.

“We just burned through 500 of those,” he said. “Our lab staff was there until 11:00, midnight almost every single night. I mean, it was really challenging.”

Supplies of rapid tests and monoclonal antibody treatments have been limited but are starting to be replenished. But Hess says the vaccinations are much more effective at preventing problems than the antibody treatment.

Pfizer booster shots are now available for people who had their Pfizer series at least six months ago. Anybody 65 and older can get the booster, as well as people 18 and over with compromised immune systems. They’re also giving Pfizer boosters to front line workers like grocery store employees and health care workers.

Moderna boosters could still be months away. Johnson and Johnson should be coming out with a booster before that. But according to Hess, they’re not sure when Moderna boosters will be needed because that vaccine is proving to be more effective in the long term.

And on Oct. 7, Pfizer submitted vaccines for those ages 5 to 11 to the FDA for emergency use.

“I’m feeling hopeful that maybe by early November we might have access to Pfizer vaccines for our five to 11 year old kids,” Hess said.

Free COVID-19 and flu vaccines are available at the hospital in Petersburg.