The avalanches came down on January 24 and closed off the Richardson Highway, the only road into Valdez. The snow was 50-70 feet deep, covering about 1500 feet of the highway. The snow created a dam of the Lowe River which backed up, preventing the road crews from getting to the avalanche until the water drained. Luckily there was an old railroad tunnel that helped with that. Road crews were finally able to start digging away at the avalanches on Friday.
People in Valdez are taking it all in stride. The town is still accessible by water and air, and supplies have been barged in. Here's a good article about how the town is handling this: http://www.adn.com/2014/02/01/3302805/valdez-no-stranger-to-disaster.html
VALDEZ -- People who live here know about snow. They also know about rain and they know about ice. But the town's real expertise is snow.
This is a place where, in the winter of 1989-90, street names had to be spray-painted on snow berms because the signs were buried in mountains of snow, and driving around town was like navigating a white-walled maze. It is a place where businesses post signs advising motorists to park feet away from the building, in case a refrigerator-sized slab should slide off the roof. In Valdez, during the recent winter of 2011-12, it snowed for 31 days straight and roofs specially engineered to hold extra-heavy loads collapsed.
But even old-timers are awed by the sheer magnitude of the highway-swallowing avalanche that abruptly plunged Valdez off the road system last week.
The avalanche, at a spot on the Richardson Highway known as a perfect incubator for avalanche conditions, happened last Saturday. It quickly became obvious that it was not one of the typical Thompson Pass slides that closes the highway for a couple hours from time to time each winter.
For starters, the avalanche at Mile 16 was bigger than anything state highway officials had ever seen: A monster debris field 100 feet tall and more than 1,000 feet long. Its force and size dammed the Lowe River, creating a half-mile-long lake. People in town dubbed it "Damalanche." Uncharted territory.
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