After glacial flood and landslides, Alaska Senate votes to raise state disaster aid limit

A pair of Southeast Alaska disasters, including a deadly landslide in Haines and a glacial flood that dropped homes into a Juneau river, has inspired the Alaska Senate to raise the cap on state disaster aid.

On Monday, the Senate voted 19-0 to pass Senate Bill 236, which would increase the maximum amount of state aid in cases when the state declares a disaster but the federal government does not. The cap would rise from $21,000 to $50,000 or half of the maximum that the Federal Emergency Management Agency pays in a federal disaster, whichever is greater.

The bill also clarifies that aid to a condo owner can be used on damage to things collectively owned by a condo association, such as the foundation of a shared condo building.

Sponsored by Sen. Jesse Kiehl, D-Juneau, the bill goes to the House for further consideration in the last two weeks of the regular legislative session.

Kiehl said he was inspired to act by a 2020 landslide in the Southeast Alaska town of Haines and a 2023 glacial flood in Juneau that garnered worldwide attention.

That flood swept away two homes and undermined a condo building that housed dozens of people. In the wake of the disaster, KTOO-FM reported that condo residents learned that state aid couldn’t be used to fix their problem.

“(The disasters) exposed those issues that needed to be fixed, and as we talked with people elsewhere around the state, the same sorts of issues kept coming up,” Kiehl said.

Amid global climate change, Alaska is warming two to three times as fast as the global average, and the state is experiencing a growing number of large and small disasters.

Other deadly landslides have occurred in Wrangell and Sitka, and communities along Interior Alaska’s rivers have suffered heavy flooding in recent years during the annual spring breakup.

Speaking on the Senate floor before the vote, Kiehl said the state’s current disaster-aid cap is so low that it doesn’t allow disaster victims to get up on their knees, let alone back on their feet.

The cap increase isn’t enough to make people whole, he said, but it gets victims closer to where they were before.

There are only two weeks left in the regular session, but Kiehl is optimistic that the House will move quickly on the idea once the Legislature’s 24-hour rule — which shortens the time needed to schedule a bill — comes into effect.

“We’re trying to work quickly here,” Kiehl said. “We’d really like to get these little fixes done and on to the governor’s desk this year.”

On Monday, the Senate also:

• Voted without dissent, 19-0, to renew the state’s marijuana board and its big-game commercial services board, allowing them to continue work through 2027 and 2032, respectively.
• Agreed to require insurance companies to operate an IT security program, based on risk assessments, in order to beef up their cybersecurity against attacks. Senate Bill 134, from Sen. James Kaufman, R-Anchorage, advances to the House.

In the House, lawmakers on Monday:

• Voted 36-1 to allow the Alaska Railroad to sell land to the city of Nenana for industrial development. House Bill 395 goes to the Senate for further work.
• Approved a resolution asking the state Department of Health to pass regulations increasing access to behavioral health treatment. Senate Concurrent Resolution 9, from Sen. Forrest Dunbar, D-Anchorage, passed the House 37-1 and has already been passed by the Senate.

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Originally published by the Alaska Beacon, an independent, nonpartisan news organization that covers Alaska state government.