Mike Lane

The Alaska Fellows Program cultivates Alaska’s next generation of leaders. It places young professionals in communities across the state, where they work alongside nonprofit and public sector organizations while receiving mentorship, housing and a modest living stipend.

In Juneau, Akanksha Basil is tasked with improving the community’s disaster response.

KTOO’s Mike Lane sat down with Basil to learn about her efforts to strengthen and streamline disaster response coordination in Juneau.

Listen:

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: You’re here in Juneau, working with United Way to establish a VOAD. So what is a VOAD? And why does it matter in Alaska?

Akanksha Basil: Yeah, so VOAD, “Volunteer Organizations Assisting or Active in Disaster,” is a group of community organizations from around a particular place that mobilizes in cases or events of disaster to coordinate resources where they need to be going, depending on the type of disaster and the people affected. So you know, who’s going to come in for feeding, and who’s going to come in for shelter. Who’s taking care of, you know, debris removal and construction, and who’s also looking at kind of a long term recovery part of this. 

Mike Lane: How would a coordinated VOAD change the way Juneau responds to disasters compared to how things have been working up until this point?

Akanksha Basil: Sure, so a coordinated VOAD would streamline the process a little bit more. So currently, what’s really great about Juneau an Southeast is that we already have an established network of people that communicate and coordinate when disasters strike, but it’s more on an informal basis. But we’d like to make this process a little bit more structured and coordinated, so that we know exactly who to call in case of emergency, no matter what the prior existing connection would be, especially because organizations are changing and there’s turnover and disasters involve different different responses and different needs. So I think that having a coordinated VOAD in Juneau would make the process a lot more streamlined, stress free and fungible and adaptable, in case that was needed.

Mike Lane: And so far, what kind of organizations are currently involved or being recruited?

Akanksha Basil: So we have organizations from all kind of sectors and who take care of all different things, anyone from Juneau Animal Rescue to the food bank and Salvation Army and the Red Cross, various churches around town that already have really wonderful established feeding programs and and mutual aid networks. And I think that this is, this is a process that we’re really trying to make as public as possible. So we are really encouraging public participation, public leadership. We want to get the word out so that people know where to find us, and they know how to get involved. So any organization, anyone’s welcome, because this is a public — it’s a public process.

Mike Lane: So are there resources or support that are still needed to fully launch this particular VOAD?

Akanksha Basil: Yes, for sure. So, right now, we are a small but mighty network. We still have quite a few organizations that we need to get in touch with, reach out to, and we’re trying to get collaboration from a broader, a broader set of the population. So that’s been a major next step to look at. 

Mike Lane: From the ground up, how long does it take to build a functioning VOAD?

Akanksha Basil: Oh, that’s a good question. I would say, quite some time, right? It’s definitely a process that we’re learning about every day. It’s changing every day. We’re still really in the initial processes of figuring out how to do this. A lot of my first couple months was researching the community, getting to know people here, making connections, figuring out what past disaster responses have looked like, and we’re just just about, kind of starting to structure structured committees, create internal policy. And you know, actually wanted to mention that we’ve also held a couple meetings so far that have been really productive have spurred some really great conversations. So we’re really happy about that, too. 

Mike Lane: And how can people get involved? 

Akanksha Basil: Yes, please. I would love for people to reach out to United Way. I’ve got an email address: voad@unitedwayseak.org … I welcome anyone, anyone to reach out and share your thoughts, share your opinions, inquire more about the process. Because we’d love people, more people to be involved in this process.

Mike Lane: Akanksha Basil, thank you for joining us.

Akanksha Basil: Thank you so much. Appreciate you.

As the city’s Emergency Programs Manager, Ryan O’Shaughnessy leads emergency planning, response and recovery for the City and Borough of Juneau.

KTOO’s Mike Lane recently caught up with O’Shaughnessy to talk about lessons learned from the major storm events in December and January and how the department operates.

Listen:

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: Ryan, what is your vision for CBJs Emergency Management Department and how did these new roles, avalanche advisor and tech fit into that vision?

Ryan O’Shaughnessy: Yeah, that’s a great question, Mike. My vision for CBJs emergency programs is really one of whole community engagement. our team really relies on strong partnerships with all kinds of different agencies for avalanche specifically, as well as for, you know, the flooding we experience in the summertime and any other hazard that we may face. You know, Juneau is an islanded community, and it really takes all of us – the public, our government agencies, our nonprofits, our private sector – to participate in emergency management.

Mike Lane: Right. Okay. Do you think you’ll be hiring for more roles in your department soon, like a geo hazard or landslide specialist, climate adaptation specialist, etc?

Ryan O’Shaughnessy: Those are great questions, Mike. I can’t speak for the Assembly on the allocation of funding for our division, but you know, we have a lot of work cut out for us. There’s, there’s no shortage of hazards in our community, our hazard mitigation plan cites many, many hazards ranging from everything from downtown fire to tsunami and earthquake, glacial lake outburst flooding, regular flooding. So there’s no shortage of hazards. And you know, we have identified in our hazard mitigation plan a lot of actions that we can take to mitigate those. But those do come with, you know, staff requirements.

Mike Lane: How do you see this past disaster declaration went? How do you think it it all unfolded? Was it organized? Was it chaos? What was it?

Ryan O’Shaughnessy: Organized chaos is where we like to live. You know, the practice of emergency management is taking those emergency scenarios and trying to bring some order to them. So, you know, I think we accomplished the objectives that we set out with which, you know, as always, we’re going to prioritize preservation of life, life/safety for the public, and protecting critical infrastructure. So always, always learning, right? There’s always things that we can do better. And we are continuing to reflect on this most recent event with our partners and internally and try to enact some lessons, some lessons learned.

Mike Lane: Excellent. Speaking of lessons learned: what did you see in this last episode of disasters that you’re now reevaluating how you’re going to do it later? Was there something that you went, “Oh, we got to change this.”

Ryan O’Shaughnessy: Yeah, I think there’s, there’s lots of stuff. A lot of, a lot of takeaways specific to avalanche. But, you know, we’re constantly looking for those things in emergency management, right? We’re training, we’re preparing, we’re executing and responding to disasters, and then the next phase of that cycle is to reflect and evaluate. Based on that evaluation, we again, we train and we plan. And you know, this disaster specifically, I think one of the core challenges was it affected everything about our community. You know, a lot of times when we see stuff like the flooding in the summer is a great example. It’s localized to an area. Whereas this disaster, it literally blanketed our community. People were tired. Both the people affected by it, the people working to respond to it, were tired from shoveling at their own homes. Everybody was exhausted. It impacted travel and the facilities we were able to use. So it was a challenging one, and some some unique and interesting lessons being learned for sure.

Mike Lane: Is there anything you’d like to add to this?

Ryan O’Shaughnessy: I never miss an opportunity to plug emergency alerts. Signing up for emergency alerts is absolutely the best way to stay informed and up to date on on anything going on related to this hazard and other hazards in our community. 

Mike Lane: How would one do that?

Ryan O’Shaughnessy: The easiest way to sign up for emergency alerts is to text “CBJ” to the number 38276. 

Mike Lane: 38276.

Ryan O’Shaughnessy: Yep. And you just type and just the in the message, just send “CBJ” and that’ll sign you up for emergency alerts. 

Mike Lane: Awesome. 

Ryan O’Shaughnessy: Alternatively, you can go to the CBJ website. Right there on the homepage, there’s a button that’ll get you signed up. 

John Bressette is Juneau’s new avalanche advisor, tracking weather and avalanche risk in the capital’s urban paths. He joined the city just before record snowfall, followed by rain and flooding, pushed the community to declare a disaster and issue evacuation advisories downtown.

KTOO’s Mike Lake spoke with Bressette about navigating that moment and what first drew him to avalanche forecasting.

Listen:

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: You’re not new to forecasting avalanches. How did you get your start in this field?

John Bressette: Well, I grew up here in Juneau, and I started going heli-skiing with my friends when I was about 18 years old, and decided I better start learning about avalanches to make sure I knew what I was doing. So I took my first avalanche class here through Bill Glude, who is a longtime avalanche specialist in Juneau and worked on some of this urban stuff a long time ago. Took some classes with him, helped him out with some research projects, and started working for him under Alaska Avalanche Specialists. And in the beginning, he had a contract with AEL&P to do forecasting for them. We also worked out at Kensington Mine and kind of helped develop the program they have going out there now and then I worked for AEL&P directly for a long time under Mike Janes as an avalanche tech assistant forecaster. 

Mike Lane: Where did you work before CBJ?

John Bressette: Well, I was doing backcountry forecasting for the Coastal Alaska Avalanche Center. And still am trying to balance both of those for now. It depends on the time of year; I’m a commercial fisherman in the summer, heli-ski guide in the spring and avalanche forecaster in the winter.

Mike Lane: So this isn’t a full-time position with CBJ. This is more of a seasonal?

John Bressette: Yeah, seasonal for now, and we’ll see how it plays out moving forward.

Mike Lane: Immediately, when you started working at CBJ, you were immediately right in the midst of of a disaster, so what was it like to experience that kind of timing?

John Bressette: Yeah, it was intense right off the get go there. So there wasn’t a whole lot of learning on the job. It was right into it. But I feel like everybody at CBJ was really good to work with, and we kind of seamlessly moved into a pretty good workflow, and were able to kind of make decisions on the fly and keep the public informed of what was going on, and I hope that went well from their perspective.

Mike Lane: What are some misconceptions people have about avalanche danger?

John Bressette: Oh, some of the big myths in the avalanche world are that loud noises can set off an avalanche, which is untrue. I think maybe one of the others is that we can predict how big or how far an avalanche will run. And that’s one of the real tricky points to avalanche forecasting, is not knowing how big or how far an avalanche will run during a given avalanche cycle. So it’s — the science behind it is coming a long ways, but it will always be an unprecise science as far as predicting the size of avalanches.

Mike Lane: Do you have any advice that you could give to those folks who are heading into avalanche terrain in the backcountry?

John Bressette: Yeah, so that’s, I want to make it clear that you know forecasting for the urban danger is much different than forecasting for the backcountry, which I do both. So I’m happy to speak on both, but it’s a completely different thing when you’re talking about people traveling into avalanche terrain, you’re looking more at human-triggered avalanches, whereas in the urban, especially in a place like Behrends, where we can’t do control work, you’re looking at more natural avalanches. So yeah, the advice for people, if they’re heading into avalanche terrain is to take an avalanche class, get some education, find the right mentors and group of people that also practice safe habits and just get yourself educated and find the right people to travel with. 

Mike Lane: And what about equipment? 

John Bressette: Yeah, with equipment. I mean, the bare minimum you want to have is a beacon, probe, shovel, partner — and know how to use those things, too. You know, it doesn’t do you any good if you don’t know how to use the equipment. So getting comfortable with those specific tools are kind of the bare minimum that you need to travel safely in the backcountry.

Mike Lane: Okay. And as far as avalanches go, what do you think we could improve on, CBJ specifically? Are there any lessons to be had that we should know about?

John Bressette: Yeah, I think that having more monitoring tools and using technology that’s come a long way for avalanche and weather monitoring is something we’re pushing really hard to get done. Right now, we’re working with AEL&P and DOT to put together a weather station on Mount Juneau, or, I should say, rebuild. There was one there previously, but we’re kind of revamping it and getting it live again, as well as, thanks to the state and the governor’s office, through this disaster declaration, we were able to buy what’s basically an avalanche radar. So it points at Mount Juneau, and we can now detect when avalanches happen at night or during foul weather. So that’s a really useful tool for us to kind of know when activity starts if we can’t visually see it or hear it. So I think those two things are going to have huge, huge benefits down the road when we enter this kind of avalanche cycle again.

Mike Lane: Are there any hot spots right now that you look at today? You step outside and you look up and you go, Hmm, that’s something we want to keep an eye on, more so than these other areas?

John Bressette: Yeah. I mean, I would say that the Behrends and the White Subdivision pass, the Bartlett pass. Those are our three big ones. Debris came a lot closer to people’s homes and the roads than than we previously thought. So you know, there was debris within 10 feet of a couple homes and on Thane it came down under the power lines and was within 100 feet of Thane road and stuff like that. So, yeah, I would say, when we get a big snow cycle like that, there’s, you know, places that we don’t typically think of the hazard being high that actually came pretty close. So those are the reasons we got people out of their homes. And yeah … I hope that comes through, that people’s safety was of the utmost importance.

With the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature under way, it’s a good time to check in with members of Juneau’s delegation.

Morning Host Mike Lane recently sat down with Representative Andi Story to learn what’s on her agenda for this session.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: The second regular session of the 34th Alaska legislature has just begun. What are your top priorities for this session?

Rep. Story: My top priorities for this session have to do with keeping our young people here, cost of living, housing is really important. And of course, education and ferries, ferries, ferries.

Mike Lane: Speaking of education, you pre-filed a bill on education funding, House Bill 261. Can you give us a brief explanation of what the bill would do if passed?

Rep. Story: Well, if you’ve been living in Juneau for a long time, you know that our education funding is backwards, that we do not get our numbers to our school districts till, like, June after the session is over. And so they are not being able to give contracts to their teaching staff, to staff at all. And so they’re living in limbo, and they leave us or we can’t maintain them. And so this bill has us do our funding a year early, where they get the number. It takes the average of the last three years student count or your last prior year student count, so whichever is greater, so we will give more stability to school districts. So that’s just critically important. And this came about because I’m on the task force for education funding. We’ve been reviewing. If you are an independent school district, you have your own taxing authority. They usually take the current year and the prior two years. But we cannot raise our own revenue. We are dependent upon what the state does and our municipalities. It allows us to focus on student achievement and not redoing budgets, and not put our community in chaos because we have to predict all this out. We don’t know our number, so I want to give confidence to our school funding budget process. 

Mike Lane: So what is your plan for getting this bill passed?

Rep. Story: I co-chair education. I’m starting to talk to people about it. I have an advantage that I’m on the task force, and so people have read that report, they’re, they’re aware of that, but just have a lot of talking to do. But people have been living this roller coaster of instability for funding for school districts, so it’s not going to be a surprise for them that we’re trying to stabilize this.

Mike Lane: What other bills have you sponsored or co-sponsored that you think could get traction or succeed this session?

Rep. Story: Well, I’m really hoping my bill, which is in house rules, on housing investments, where [Alaska Industrial Development Economic Association]will be allowed to do workforce housing, give developers loans for workforce housing of five dwelling units or more. This has been critical. We have to move on housing. There are a few things that [Alaska Housing Finance Corporation] does, but this is something AIDEA  could do that would really help developers. 

Mike Lane: How can Alaskans inside and outside of Juneau get a hold of you?

Rep. Story: 907-465-3744, of course. I’m on the website, but calling is really good. And I very frequently do Zoom meetings, you know, phone calls. And I do that with Alaska residents too. Juneau residents who do not want to drive and try and find parking downtown, they just call and we set up a meeting. So please call, please email. That is probably the number one thing we have to do is bring the community, the state in on our policies, and get their voices heard. And so I like to hear what people really want me to be working on

Mike Lane: To wrap up: As one of Juneau’s representatives, what do you see as your ultimate duties and responsibilities to the people of Juneau and all of Alaska?

Rep. Story: Really, to meet our constitutional obligations because it is so important — the people of the state. We have a lot of resources in the state. The biggest resource we have is each of us, is the people. So we want to try and bring that voice up to the the capitol that it’s important our human resources and how are we making sure we have quality of life here.

With the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature just kicking off, it’s a good time to check in with members of Juneau’s delegation to talk priorities and plans for the session. Rep. Sara Hannan (D-Juneau) spoke with KTOO’s Mike Lane last week just before the session started. 

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: How you are feeling about going into the second regular session of the 34th Alaska legislature?

Rep. Hannan: Well, you know, I came out of a education background, so I always like to say the start of session feels like returning to school and, you know, seeing friends you haven’t seen for a while. It’s always a good pace, of course. As a junior representative, this is my year-round office. I’m in the Capitol Building 12 months a year. But it gets kind of quiet in the fall, you know. The summer, we have all those summer visitors, but the pace has picked up. The building’s alive with new people, bright eyes, all the college interns who are, you know, here to to change the world in 120 days. And that’s always really good energy.  

Mike Lane: Is there anything that you are particularly looking forward to for this session? And is there anything that you’re not looking forward to for this session?

Rep. Hannan: Well, we have got to address our big fiscal issues in this state and we have got to figure out a path to pay for the things we need. Things haven’t gotten cheaper and our disasters have continued to grow in cost and scope, and keeping the lights on will be a struggle, but we have got to keep the state functional and the roads plowed and the ferries running and schools operational and public safety people eligible to respond and get people working in Alaska, keep people working in Alaska. So there are a lot of tough political discussions to have, and it’s the second half of a two-year session, so it makes it a challenge to get complex policy addressed, and then it’s a big political election year. You know, as a member of the House, every two years is an election year, but this is one of those where it’s gubernatorial and, you know, a high profile U.S. Senate seat, as well as every member of the House of Representatives.

Mike Lane: When it comes to the budget, where do you believe cuts are necessary?

Rep. Hannan: I don’t see a lot of areas for cuts. We have squeezed and cut the budget for over a decade, and so when we start talking about cuts, we are talking about basic services not being able to be delivered that people have an expectation of. You know, we can’t put more equipment on the road to keep our roads plowed without paying workers to drive them. And we compete with private sector. You know, operators and engineers, they can go to the private sector and make more money, and in variety of places, we can’t keep up with the services we need, so I don’t see a lot of places to cut.

Mike Lane: And what does a successful session look like for you? 

Rep. Hannan: Well, when it comes to personal legislation, you always want to see improvements on that. If I could get House Bill 242 passed, that would be good. I see this as a bill with very little policy dispute because it’s very narrow in scope. We’re modernizing the sexual assault consent in this from knowing to unknowing being irrelevant. I think that in the 21st century, we understand the dynamics about how people respond in sexual assault cases and make it prosecutable, because it’s pretty horrific that medical providers could assault someone and not be prosecuted. I have a couple pieces of personal legislation that I think we can get passed. Tax on vape tobacco – that’s a bill I’ve been sponsoring since I first got in, but the Senate version of it is sponsored by Senate President Gary Stevens; that’s Senate Bill 24. It’s all the way over in House Finance. I believe that we are positioned to get that because, right now, vaped nicotine in Alaska is not taxed by the state. Our tax state statutes on tobacco specified type, so cigars, cigarettes, chew, snuff, et cetera, and the last time we amended that statute, vaping wasn’t a thing, so it’s not listed. Then there’s a little bill of just sort of local interest on charitable gaming, a snow classic, that we’ve gotten out of the house and is in the senate. We have charitable gaming in Alaska, classics being, you know, the Nenana Ice Classic is the one that people most know about. A fiscal plan would be helpful; that would be that would be a real success. But that’s pretty optimistic for 120 days.

With the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature beginning on Tuesday, it’s a good time to check in with members of Juneau’s delegation to talk priorities, predictions and plans for the session.

Sen. Jesse Kiehl (D-Juneau) spoke with KTOO’s Mike Lane about what he expects to see this year.

The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Mike Lane: We’re in the studio with Sen. Jesse Kiehl. Welcome Senator. 

Sen. Kiehl: Well, thank you. 

Mike Lane: How are you feeling about going into the second regular session?

Sen. Kiehl: Well, I’m, I’m excited to have everybody come back to the capital city. It’s always, always good to have colleagues from around the state gather at the Capitol and get to work. And also, you know, catch up a little bit. Some of these folks are even friends.

Mike Lane: Is there anything that you’re looking forward to or not looking forward to in this particular session?

Sen. Kiehl: Well, I think that the biggest question is going to be, what issues catch fire and get the most traction? Crucially, the thing you always have to do has got to be a budget, right? The Constitution limits us to one year at a time. Gives us some duties — public safety, public health, managing our resources, education, couple other things. And so we we have to pass and fund a budget. And one thing I’m not looking forward to is making that balance. That’s going to be, without a doubt, one of the biggest and most difficult issues in front of the Legislature this year. That’s not new. The Governor, who has for all of his terms, stood squarely in the way of any kind of fiscal plan with a reasonable possibility of happening, has said that this year he’s proposing one. If the governor proposes something that is serious, if the governor proposes something that has a kerosene snowballs chance in Hades of passing, then that will be, I think, the primary issue of the session. If it’s something that can’t get the votes, won’t get the votes Alaskans aren’t going to support, then we won’t probably spend huge amounts of time and effort on that. I’m a fiscal plan guy. We need to stabilize the state’s resources, stabilize the state’s ability to do the basic things we all need a government to do, infrastructure, safety, education, et cetera, can’t do them on your own. And so we have a structural deficit. And with the price of oil down and looking to maybe go down further, balancing the books is going to be really brutal this year, without some revenue.

Mike Lane: With that said, are there any other pressing or urgent issues that you believe are being overlooked at this time?

Sen. Kiehl: Well, I don’t know about overlooked, right? The other thing that has the potential to take a huge amount of time is this, this 50-year dream of a gas line, and if that project gets cash or customers, if it’s got customers with a balance sheet who will sign on the line? Yes, I’m in to buy gas that comes through this pipeline. Well, then we have some very serious and major issues as a Legislature that we’re going to have to work on to make sure that gas line can happen.

Mike Lane: All right, fair enough. And we touched very briefly on the budget. Where do you believe cuts are necessary?

Sen. Kiehl: We have done a lot of cutting already. We have done a huge amount, and so we are always looking at the most efficient way to deliver government services. But Alaskans, by and large, want the services the state provides. It just comes down to that. So we’re going to dig in. We’re going to get down to the nitty gritty and talk to everybody and figure out, what is the more effective, efficient way to deliver that necessary government service, what’s the most efficient, effective way to do that. We’re talking about saving 10s of 1000s or hundreds of 1000s of dollars a year max, and that counts. We’re going to work on it. But it’s not hundreds of millions of dollars. It’s not a budget deficit. And so we will always do those things, because we always need to do the best we can for Alaskans, but that’s not going to solve our budget issue.

Mike Lane: My last question. How can Alaska secure the PFD for the next five to 10 years? 

Sen. Kiehl: Fundamentally, the most important thing we’re going to need is some additional revenue with a moderate new revenue stream, or probably it’s a couple of little streams — right? — that come together to a moderate amount. We can stabilize, we can provide public safety, good education, infrastructure. We can run roads and ferries and airports, do the things that the Constitution requires us do, that Alaskans need us to do and still have a PFD going forward.

Mike Lane: And Senator, is there anything I didn’t ask you that you’d like to touch on?

Sen. Kiehl: I’ll just say it is such a privilege to represent the capital city. This town welcomes legislators, welcomes staff from all over the state. Agree with them, disagree with them. They’r here serving the public. They’re serving their constituents. They’re here to do a job for all of Alaska. And I’m always proud of the capital city welcoming my colleagues from around the state. I’m looking forward to that happening again this year. It’s going to be a hard session. I hope it’s a productive one.

Mike Lane: It is the second regular session of the 34th Alaska Legislature, it begins Tuesday the 20th of January. Senator, thanks for joining me. 

Sen. Kiehl: Thanks so much for having me.