#009 Landslide Risk in Alaska: What You Need to Know - Dr. Bretwood "Hig" Higman

In this episode of The State I Am In, I talk with Dr. Bretwood “Hig” Higman—geologist, lifelong Alaskan, and founder of Ground Truth Alaska—about life, land, and the very real risks facing our coastal communities. 

We explore Hig’s life in Seldovia and his adventures with wife Erin McKittrick, author of A Long Trek Home. Together, they’ve traveled thousands of miles across Alaska by foot and packraft, raising their kids along the way in one of the most remote corners of the state. Their unconventional approach to life and career is not only refreshing—it’s inspiring, and chalk full of lessons about resilience, curiosity, and the land we call home. 

We also dig into something more urgent: the growing threat of landslides in coastal Alaska. Hig explains what’s happening, risk vs consequence, where science and culture collide, and what Alaskans need to know—from potential warning signs to what communities can actually do. 

This is a conversation about living close to the land, understanding the risks, and staying grounded—literally and figuratively—in a rapidly changing Alaska. 

Visit www.groundtruthalaska.org to learn more.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
There are these issues that affect everyone when

(00:20):
big things happen.
So we talked about Mount Spur.
a few minutes ago and how whenMount Spur was getting angry,
all of a sudden it's in the newseverywhere and people are like,
you know, all ears are up on,you know, what do we do if it
erupts and where's the ash cloudgoing to move?
And what do we know like abouthow big this eruption could be

(00:42):
or what neighborhoods could beaffected by this?
And, and so to have someone thatis kind of in, not, not
necessarily volcanoes, but a,you know, a PhD in, Geology is
really special to have on theepisode because you're able to
give a unique and specializedinsight to specific topics and

(01:04):
we're going to talk a lot aboutlandslides today and just your
perspective on that.
But what I'm trying to do isbridge the gap in the average
Alaskan to your specialty,because when big things happen
like an eruption or a landslide.
Even though we all have ourlittle niches around the state
and things we're interested in,it affects everyone.

(01:25):
We feel that loss when acommunity is affected.
We feel the loss when lives areaffected and lost.
I remember with Wrangell, Ithink that's the most recent one
I can remember was the Wrangelllandslide where six

SPEAKER_02 (01:38):
people died.
Yeah, there was a death inKetchikan last year.
But yeah, Wrangell was a reallybad one.
This whole family was lost intheir home there.
And that

SPEAKER_00 (01:51):
hits home for everyone.
So I hope this kind of bridgesthat gap, brings some awareness
to the geohazards that arearound the state, things that
you're giving your life energyto, to studying and
understanding, and that we cankind of catch a glimpse of that
and then be aware of yourefforts, join you in those

(02:13):
efforts, and then be aware ofwhat's going on in the state.
policy, things like that aswell.
So I can't say it enough.
Thank you again for Oh, yeah, Iappreciate you.

SPEAKER_02 (02:24):
Appreciate you putting this stuff together.
Like it's it's really, yeah,it's a whole effort to make
something like this.
Yeah, I'm happy to be here.
Cool.
So I don't

SPEAKER_00 (02:33):
want to.
I want to be brief in this, butI feel like there's so much
here.
And maybe I talked to Aaronabout joining me someday on the
show because Aaron McKittrick,your wife, has wrote multiple
books that are out there.
You can find them in most storesif you peruse around the Alaska
author section.
A Long Trek Home was one of thefirst ones I came across when I

(02:59):
learned about the work that youwere doing.
A local teacher told me youshould check out This guy named
Higg.
And I was like, Higg?
And then I just, you know,Google search and find you, find
the work that you're doing.
Find this book called The LongTrek Home by your wife, Erin.
You grew up in Soldovia.
However, you went to school inWashington.

SPEAKER_02 (03:18):
Yeah, I went.
I did college in Minnesota andthen grad school in Seattle and
Washington.
Yep.
And you studied

SPEAKER_00 (03:24):
geology there, correct?
Mm-hmm.
And tell me about how you, youknow, I guess how you met Erin
and then the decision to, hey,let's go walk.
back home.
Yeah, well, let's

SPEAKER_01 (03:36):
go.

SPEAKER_02 (03:37):
I mean, we've met as undergrads.
So in Minnesota, at CarletonCollege, and, and, you know, had
a number of interests in common,including hiking, but we had
really different backgrounds.
I grew up like bushwhackingaround in the backwoods in
Seldovia, she grew up hiking ontrails in Washington State was
where she grew up.
And, and, and she really came inwith this vision of like wanting

(04:01):
to do a really big trip.
And so from her Her place, shewas thinking about Pacific Crest
Trail.

SPEAKER_00 (04:06):
Okay,

SPEAKER_02 (04:07):
yeah.
At that time, I've become kindof a trail nut.
I'm really involved in trails alot now, but at that time, I was
like, ah, trails, that's theboring part.
Trails is how you get to theinteresting place, and then you
go off the trail.
So I was like, well, we don'twant to do Pacific Crest Trail.
It's cool, the idea to spend along time.
I really hadn't even crossed mymind to spend months out at one

(04:30):
time.
But, uh, so we ended up doing atrip in, um, actually in 2001
that actually started rightacross the water from here.
We actually flew into, uh, thedrift river flats out by retail,
which was a very random place tostart.
And we hiked all the way toChignik, which is way down on
the Alaska peninsula.
And I spent two months doingthat.

(04:51):
And, uh, That was really cool.
That was an amazing experience.

(05:15):
It's on par.
Like, I mean, you know, it'sjust it's it's it's so lucky to
be able to have both of thoseexperiences.
So.
So, yeah.
Anyway, we were both prettyhooked.
We did a lot of trips over thefew years.
We were both in grad school.
And Aaron was like, yeah, wewant to do something that's a
year long when we get out ofgrad school.

(05:36):
And she she she she stopped witha master's a little before me.
I got my Ph.D.
In 2007, it was like, yeah, Iguess, you know, ultimately...
you need a piece of paperworkwith a set of signatures on it,
right?
That's the PhD.
And, you know, you've checkedall the boxes and stuff.

(05:59):
And a few months before we hadour plan to go out the door, I
was, like, struggling withwriting.
And I remember one of mycommittee members was like,
well, maybe you want to justkind of, like, come back after
this trip.
And I was like, no, I want towalk out the door done.
And so I just– it was like this,you know, hell months, several
months of just pushing– hard toget all of that done.

(06:21):
And then, yeah, I got thosesignatures on that piece of
paper and less than 24 hourslater, handed the key to our
landlord and walked out thefront door and spent over a year
walking, ended up out in theAleutians.

SPEAKER_00 (06:33):
Yeah.
And it's such a wild story.
So from Seattle all the way tothe Aleutians, it took you a
year?
Yeah, a little over.
And it was all human powered.
It wasn't just like, you know,you're hopping planes to the
Aleutians.
It was, I think the booksubtitled like boot, raft, ski,
or something like that.
And it's just, it's insane tothink about that because it's

(06:56):
such a unique experience thatnot many people get.
And to take your expertise, solike the PhD, the signed paper,
you know, your interest ingeology and, you know, what the
education that goes along withthat.
But then like you're saying, tohave all of that and then travel
with that through this like epicjourney, it's just wild.

(07:17):
And it's, it's, I'm sure there'sa lot of things that we could
talk about about that journey.
But what changed in you fromwhen you took off to by the time
you ended?
Oh, interesting.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (07:29):
Well, I mean, one of the things that we've it's like
one of these things we say nowit's kind of my whole family.
We've got a couple of teenagersthere we go out and do trips
with.
And it's not that this is like asimple fact, but it does
illustrate it is that it takesabout.
two weeks to get into the swingof things.
And about a month in, you forgetyour previous life.

(07:51):
Like it starts being like, thisis life is like, I get up in the
morning, I pack up a tent and Igo wander off through the
mountains and try to get tosomewhere.
And I'm looking at how much foodI have and thinking like, you
know, unfortunately I'm not thegreatest hunter gatherer.
So I need to get to a little bitof civilization and resupply
within, well, it'd be nice to bethere in a week, but it's going

(08:14):
to take us 10 days.
I guess we won't eat as muchtoday.
You know, uh, uh, It's hard toboil that down into like, here
is the thing that I learned.
But I would say for mepersonally, it was a good
transition to a life that is nota very conventional career

(08:37):
within the kind of the normalAmerican story of like, okay,
well, what's the job you getthat's as prestigious as
possible, that pays as much aspossible, and then this will
build a good life?
And I don't actually have anyproblem with that model.
I'm not like, you know, yeah,not saying anything bad about
that model, but the model thatI've ended up in is looking

(09:01):
around, trying to figure outwhat can I do that is not
getting done where I can providevalue to people you know, at
whatever scale of community orthe world as a whole or
whatever.
And can I just go and try to dothat?
And, and then, you know, live asuper low cost lifestyle, see

(09:23):
what happens.
If I can get paid, that's nice.
I do.
I mean, I'm not separate fromthe economy.
I actually do, you know, need abit of money, you know, but not
a lot.
And I don't have to make everydecision based on where is
there, like, is there a grant Ican get?
Is there, you know, someparticular contract I can pursue

(09:45):
or whatever?
And if I can't, then I justdon't do it.
No, I'll jump in and start doingit.
And I really think, yeah, thatopportunity to spend it, it's
like a year-long meditation in away, right?
Walking through the wilderness,right?
That actually really helpedsolidify that.
And look at the path both Aaronand I have followed since then.

(10:07):
It's like, oh, yeah, we kind ofboth ended up approaching things
that way.
And in some ways, quitedifferent paths on the details,
like the subjects that we focuson and stuff are different.
But yeah, that says something, Ithink, about the learning in
that experience.

SPEAKER_00 (10:23):
Yeah.
what I think is really coolabout that is that you and Aaron
just discovered that togetherabout, you know, this is a, this
is a path that we can take.
That's not as, as followed thepast, less, less followed.
You started a family and thenyou had a kid, you had two, you
have two kids, correct.

(10:43):
And where some people might say,well, well, now we're going to
start a family.
So trash all of that.
And let's just get on thetraditional route.
You guys didn't do that.
And you brought your kids alongwith that, which I think is
awesome because some peoplewould be tempted to kind of
throw that ideal away and justkind of conform and kind of held

(11:05):
to your guns.
So can you talk about what thatlooked like once you did start a
family?
Because through, again, some ofthe stories that I've heard
about that you and Aaron andyour family has taken, you know,
pack rafting through Cook Inlet,living on sea ice for months at
a time with children, with likelittle kids.
Tell me about how that idealwith you and Aaron evolved, or I

(11:30):
guess was...
incorporated into how you raisedyour kids?

SPEAKER_02 (11:34):
Oh, I mean, talk to any parent, right?
It's messy.
It is not, you know, it's hard.
Like, I mean, it's like all of asudden you're like, you've got a
very poorly defined additionaljob that is really difficult.
And like, there's all theseexpectations and stuff.
And definitely we're nodifferent than that.
Like, it's a mess.
We question what we do.

(11:56):
And like, there are things likewe were sitting down and having
a really frank conversation.
There'd be things where you'relike, I don't know.
I think you could have done thisbetter as parents.
One thing that is a little, Ithink maybe it might make it
make a little more sense what wedid, you know, going out into
the wilderness with our kids.
If you do anything, even justlike you're, I'm going to go on

(12:18):
a road trip and I've got mykids, like something that's
really fairly common, thattransition, getting out the
door, is tough.
Yeah.
Like this is going to be messy.
You know, kids are like, youknow, they, that they're,
they're going to respond howeverthey respond, which frankly,
it's like a completely differentstory every year of their lives.

(12:38):
They keep changing.
Like you can't, it's not likeyou figure it out.
And then, so anyway, so true,that transition is really, uh,
really tough.
And it is a huge barrier.
And I think when people thinkabout wilderness with their
kids, um, They're like, well,I'll go out for a couple nights,
see how it goes.
And they're like, oh, my God,I'm never going to do that
again.
And we had a little bit of, youknow, kind of momentum to carry

(13:01):
us past that.
And so we were like, oh, we'regoing to go out for a month or
two months.
And you do, you get past thosefirst few days, and then the
kids slot into this new world.
Like, you know, I said earlier,two weeks to get into the swing,
a month to forget your pastlife.
For young kids, it's maybe five.
two days to get into the swingand four days to forget your
past life.

(13:22):
You know, it happens.
And we did really like we did atrip in in 2011.
So they were toddlers.
They were both in diapers still.
And we spent a couple of monthsout on and around Malaspina
Glacier.
And that uh that was a firstexperiment in kind of

(13:42):
envisioning what it is to gointo the wilderness in a little
different way because as just acouple of young adults we're
like all right we can go 20miles a day and so we would
stretch these trips betweendifferent points and we would do
a lot we cover a lot of groundand that was and you'll see a
lot of wilderness adventurersthat's A key variable is like,

(14:02):
oh, it's distance.
But we're like, yeah, that's notreally making sense with
toddlers.
And so we started looking forthese places that are just
phenomenally dynamic wildernessplaces where you, even if you go
two miles, the adults are likelearning and experiencing all
along the way.
The kids are seeing somethingcompletely different and they're
having a whole experience.
amazing time too you knowthey're like look at this stick

(14:25):
i found like that is an awesomestick so uh that has opened up
you know that's really made it alot more possible than it would
otherwise be i think you knowit's a great you know i talked
about it being a great uh way oflearning for me as someone who's
done all the schooling going outinto the wilderness i mean i
think many of your audience herein alaska will be like oh yeah

(14:47):
the time i spent in thewilderness was a huge
educational experience and ithink that applies right down to
toddlers um we've actually kindof we had a few years where we
didn't do as much uh when theywere you know kind of actually
at a relatively easy age like uhyou know eight ten years old Um,
but we were, we were doing a lotof trail work and that was
taking up some of ourwilderness, you know, kind of

(15:09):
energy, I guess.
And the kids came, I came,especially my, my eldest cat,
mine.
She was like, okay, we.
We need to go and do a properexpedition.
I hear all these stories aboutthings I did five years ago.
I don't remember it.
And so we've been reallyreinstating that.
It's not as much of a publickind of experience as some of
the earlier things we did, butit's been really great going out

(15:31):
for a long trip still.

SPEAKER_00 (15:33):
That's awesome.
Did they ever...
verbalized to you?
Like, can't we just go toDisneyland like other families
do?
Or were they pretty much boughtinto it just because of the
lifestyle you all

SPEAKER_02 (15:43):
live?
I mean, I think it's, you know,this is the funny thing.
You know, the kids coming fromthey don't know any better.

SPEAKER_00 (15:49):
Sure, yeah.
All they know is what you alldo,

SPEAKER_02 (15:52):
yeah.
I...
I'd say there's still a littlebit of that.
Yeah.
Um, I think, uh, Latia, myyounger daughter, you know, is
maybe a little more on that.
Like, well, okay.
You know, expeditions are whatwe do, I guess, but you know,
isn't there maybe something elsethat would be a nicer in some
way.
And, uh, But they– I've actuallybeen surprised at how positive

(16:14):
they are about it.
We definitely don't– you know,as they're maturing, like, it's
more and more.
It's their choice.
We're definitely not going toforce them to do anything like
this.
And they're both– we're going tospend a month out and probably
in the Talkeetnas this year.
And, yeah, they're really boughtinto that.
And they want to go somewhereless rainy than our last trip.

(16:34):
We were in Prince William Soundfor a month in 2023, so– Well,

SPEAKER_00 (16:38):
I think it's really cool.
Last week, I talked aboutcompletely different contexts.
I talked about youth sports andhow in a very small way, that is
one chance for parents to beable to build some kind of
resilience in their kids becausethey experience failure.
They have to practice somethingto get better at something.
They have to learn what it is tofall down and get back up, to

(17:01):
experience some pain andtraining.
And in a modern context, societyyou know in youth sports I don't
say youth sports youth sportsculture but if you go to a
public school like there'ssports and things like that and
if kids aren't going outdoors ifthey're not taking care of
animals or if they don't havemuch difficulty outside of their

(17:22):
I don't know their environmentsometimes youth sports can can
help with that because nowthey're they're faced with some
challenges I mean you can getthat through education sure but
It is a different kind ofchallenge.
Sometimes it's painfulphysically to, you know, to be
able to be successful in thosethings.
So I think it's cool.
Cool is probably the worst wordto use, but I think it's

(17:42):
valuable that you are able to.
do that in that way with yourkids because it builds a type of
resilience that I think isprobably even greater than what
you would find in youth sports.
Do you feel like you haveresilient kids because of those
experiences?

SPEAKER_02 (17:58):
Well, I hope they're resilient.
I think that in my mind, youmentioned youth sports seem to
do this better than conventionaleducation.
And I think the thing that Iwould, the distinction I would
make there is that In sports, asmuch as there are contrived
rules and stuff, ultimately, itis just a property of the system

(18:21):
what success looks like or whatyour experience looks like.
You're competing against someoneelse, and they are who they are.
It's not like, okay, if I checkthese three boxes, then I get an
A.
It really is you're out there.
It may be that you're doing anawesome job, and yet your team
loses.
And that, I think, is verysimilar to the wilderness.

(18:43):
You go out into the wilderness,you can talk about it in terms
of rules.
There even are some rules wetake with us into the
wilderness.
It's not like it's completeanarchy once you walk out the
door.
But...
there is this natural system andwe use the phrase natural
consequences sometimes, whichfocuses like, I think on the
negative aspect of it that like,okay, well, if you, you're like,
oh, whatever, I'm just going togo walk into the water over my

(19:06):
boots.
And then, oh, now I have wet,cold feet.
Like, and there is that elementof it, but I think it's, it's
much more complex than just likeenforcing some sort of thing
that a parent might want theirkids to do.
It is this whole experience ofthe world is what it is.
And it's, You can try to projectwhatever you want onto it.

(19:27):
There are some things that it isjust what it is.
And you don't really get tolearn that in a conventional
schooling environment becausethere it is all built.
It is an entirely builtenvironment in terms of the
rules and things that are goingthere.
Now, that can be reallyefficient if you're like, I want
to learn how to programdifferential equations in order

(19:49):
to model the propagation of awave.
Yeah, going and sitting on thebeach is probably not the best
way to do that, right?
You know, there are people whohave struggled with these ideas
for many years.
If you can be connected to thatintellectual pipeline and build
on the knowledge of others,schooling is amazing to be able
to do that.
So I'm not knocking that, but Ithink that these are two

(20:11):
different things, and I thinkthat having both of them in your
life is really great.
Like, I love being, like, youknow, a technical geologist
building but also trying to, andI'm a total fumbling newbie at
building structures and stuff,but I'm learning there, you
know?
And I look at the people aroundme and I'm like, okay, how are

(20:33):
they doing?
I'm kind of like go makemistakes kind of person.
So I'm like, oh, maybe I'll doit this other way.
And then it doesn't work.
I'm like, okay, I see whyeveryone does it this way.
But that's just as important tome as these highly technical
topics.
And I feel really privileged tobe able to mix those two.
And I see the same thing for mykids.

SPEAKER_00 (20:49):
Yeah, that's a really good perspective.
I want to talk about whereGround Truth Trekking, which
evolved into Ground Truth Alaskain 2020.
It's kind of a

SPEAKER_02 (20:59):
rebrand thing.
So we called it Ground TruthTrekking initially, and then
people were like, so can we hireyou to guide us somewhere?
I'm like, oh, that's not reallythe idea.
So we came up with this idea ofchanging the name to Ground
Truth Alaska, but it's not likewe have a marketing department
that makes sure this is allstraightened out.
So I must say it's mostlyconfusion.
But Ground Truth Alaska, itwould be our preferred name

(21:22):
right now.
So where did that begin?
Where's the origin of that?
Well, actually, so Aaron's workwas really the start of that.
So back in 2004 and 2005, whenthere was first this interest in
developing a large copper mineby Lake Iliamna, the Pebble
Mine, we knew a little bit aboutthat area.

(21:44):
We've been through just kind ofcoincidentally through the area.
And and Aaron was reading aboutthis and was like, this seems
really big and it seems kind ofworrisome because this would
put, you know, this facilitythat potentially would produce a
lot of.
Well, it's actually aciddrainage anyway, like there's a
risk to the environment and it'skind of in a really bad spot.

(22:08):
And so she thought, well, I'lljust go out there and take a
look and actually go, you know,got the skill set.
And she went solo and went outthere and wandered around and
kind of started.
Actually, I'm trying toremember.
Is that correct?
Did she go solo initially?
Anyway, she led the charge.
Her background's in biology.
Yes.

(22:28):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Molecular biology.
And yeah.
That may not be correct that shewent solo.
But anyway, she went and startedkind of compiling information,
but then paired that with theexperience of actually going out
there and looking at this place.
And that really seemed to helpkind of get that conversation
going, where this is not justsome news reports or whatever.

(22:51):
There is a real place that goingout and having a tangible
experience and all the sillylittle issues of dealing with
the wind and and the rain, andthis is some difficult
environments and beautiful.
And having a story about that,being able to tell what it was

(23:12):
like to be there, that wasreally connected with people.
And so it was sort of thisrealization that this is a way
to bring these kind of two waysof thinking together, one being
like, okay, we research thechemistry of people iron pyrite
dissolving or oxidizing andproducing.

(23:34):
sulfuric acid, you know,something highly technical like
that.
And then pair that with thetangible experience of like,
what do you learn when you goout without much expectation?
You're in a place, you talk tothe people who live there.
So that, that phrase groundtruth, it actually comes out of
like, especially out of themilitary where they're using
like satellite images to try tounderstand, you know, okay,

(23:56):
what's going on.
But they recognize that when youlook from afar and, you don't
know for sure what's actuallygoing on there.
And that someone being out therephysically seeing what's going
on, they are finding that groundtruth.
And that is ultimately thiscritical piece of understanding
what's going on.

(24:16):
And so we were kind ofattempting to follow that.
And I think it provided a lot ofvalue.
The organization has evolved andwe kind of take it in whatever
direction we're going.
But it's still that...
that inspiration of the sort ofdeep technical research

(24:38):
perspective with beingphysically in the place, talking
to the people that live there,that continues as a core value,
I guess, that we pursue.

SPEAKER_00 (24:48):
That's great.
And I think one of the thingsthat you, as far as your
mission, is to connect thosethings, those truths you're
seeing on the ground, and thenbringing that awareness to the
public in a different kind ofperspective that's not, like
you're saying, not the technicalreports or maybe the data that
we're receiving, but thatcoupled with the your personal

(25:09):
experiences there anddocumenting that as well.
So connecting that with thepublic is what I'm trying to
say.
Your background is, or before Imove on to that.
So also trails, so you guys workon trails.
as well, developing trailsystems.
Is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 (25:28):
The heart of that is one specific trail, which
started out as Tutka Backdoor.
It's kind of unclear what thename for the whole thing is, but
people seem to be starting tosettle on the Backdoor Trail in
general.
A large portion of it is inKachemak Bay State Park, extends
from the south coast, the reallyremote southern coast at Taylor

(25:50):
Bay, through the mountains, andeventually would connect all the
way to Seldovia the actual townof Seldovia.
Right now, there's a sectionmissing in the mountains behind
Seldovia.
And so we'll be working on thatthis summer.
And I don't think it'll becontinuous till next summer.
But yeah, that was kind of a...
sort of a happenstance thing tokind of stumble into uh in some

(26:11):
of the kind of long-termplanning for the state park uh i
was part of some of thoseconversations and i mentioned
this route that we had taken asa non-trail route uh through the
mountains i was like well youknow this would be a natural
place to put a trail and thepeople who were involved were
like wow that's an amazing ideathat's really exciting and so i
like okay if it's exciting let'si thought run with it super

(26:32):
naive going into this and ithought like this will be easy
you know it's a it's a Goodbushwhack.
We cut a few branches, you'rebasically there.
Okay, no, this has been a decadeof hard work and we're still, it
will never be done done.
And there is a tremendous amountthat we could do.
But there have been hundreds ofvolunteers who've gone out into

(26:54):
the field.
Yeah, email me if you'reinterested in doing trail work.
I think it's some of the bestvolunteer trail work experiences
you can possibly have.
And it's been really, reallyexciting.

SPEAKER_00 (27:06):
Okay, cool.
I didn't want to forget thataspect of it, of Ground Truth,
Alaska.
Your background, though, is instudying the tsunami record,
right?
And at some point, youtransitioned into geohazards,
specializing in geohazards, butspecifically landslides.

(27:26):
When did that...
occur?
When did that shift happen?

SPEAKER_02 (27:30):
Well, tsunamis are definitely a geohazard also.
Correct.
So yeah, in grad school, I wasworking on tsunamis and worked
on tsunamis that were similar tothe one that happened in 1964
here in Alaska.
But actually, I worked a lot onthe 2004 tsunami in the Indian
Ocean and some others.
And looking at the geologicrecord, so what evidence you

(27:50):
would find long after somethinglike that happened.
So that was where I started.
And I'd always been intrigued bythese landslide tsunamis.
Like the most famous one is atsunami that happened in 1958 in
Latuya Bay in Alaska.
And, you know, how would thosecompare to these earthquake
generated tsunamis?
And so then we had in 2015,there was a giant tsunami in a

(28:13):
place called Tan Fjord, which ispart of Icy Bay.
It's just west of Yakutat.
And a landslide came out of themountains, went into the head of
this fjord.
The highest run-up point that wedocumented was 633 feet up the
mountainside.
It's pretty incredible to bestanding next to, like, alders

(28:34):
that are flattened by this wave,and you're like, I'm way up on a
mountain.
The water is way down there.
Somehow it got up here.
This was in 2015?
2015 this happened.
And so in 2016, I was in thefield there, and I ended up
being very deeply involved inthe research in the wake of
that.
And I initially, like even atthe end of that, like a couple

(28:56):
years into that, I was stillbarely looking at landslides.
I was like, you know, just kindof like, that's not a topic I
know very well.
I'm really, my background was intsunamis.
But, you know, I was aroundlandslide people and there was a
landslide that happened andgenerated a tsunami in Gruink
Lake, really near Homer andSeldovia in 1967.
So I started looking at that.

(29:17):
There's still, there's a dangerthat something like that could
happen again in the same place.
Pretty significant danger.
So I was starting to look atthat.
at that.
And then in 2020, so I had acolleague, Chun-Li Dai, she's at
University of Florida now.
She's very much a she looks atsatellite data.

(29:37):
She doesn't go into the field,right?
She's the other half, you know,I would be more of the ground
truth half.
She's the remote sensed half.
And, uh, she was interested inlarge landslides and, um, and
she asked me for a list ofplaces to look at.
And I didn't even reallyunderstand what, uh, approaches
she was using.
Uh, so I gave her just a soup tonuts list.

(29:59):
I was like, well, there'ssomething here, there's
something there.
And, you know, I gave her around20, 30 sites around Alaska that
I knew about this kind of largelandslide activity.
Uh, And she came back a couplemonths later, and she's like,
well, I'm looking at this onethat you sent me, which was one
that actually my sister pointedout, Felisa Higman.
She had been out kayaking inPrince Williamstown, and she's

(30:19):
like, wow, it seems like there'ssome cracks in that
mountainside.
That's sort of like what mybrother's been looking at.
So she sent that to me, and Ihad sent it along to Chun Li.
And she's like, yeah, I'mlooking at this one and it looks
like the whole mountain ismoving.
And it's like, that's probablynot the case.
Like that sounds implausible.
She showed some results and itwas like, it was kind of like,

(30:40):
They were too good.
It was like, I don't know, theremay be some mistake.
And so she's like, well, okay,I'll go back and check things
out.
And she came back and she'slike, well, I'm pretty sure I
can just go on this Google Earthtime-lapse.
There's something you can goonline.
Anyone can go look at this.
I think I can see it movingthere.
And so I knew that meant thatyou could see it in these public

(31:02):
images, Landsat.
It's like one of the oldestsatellite platforms out there.
So I like pulled up a couple ofLandsat images.
I'm like, sure enough, like thisentire side of this mountain is
moving enough that you can seeit.
And this is quite grainy, lowresolution imagery.
And so that kind of started awhole thing.
There's now a lot of work goingon there.
The one of the things I tookaway from that was that, so this

(31:29):
is super obvious, like inhindsight, like now I look at
that place and I can't unsee it.
Like it is super obvious.

UNKNOWN (31:37):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (31:37):
And there were other geologists who worked in that
area and had looked at thatslope, but none of them were
looking for this kind oflandslide activity.
So I thought, you know, maybe wehaven't been looking and what
else might be out there.
And so over the last, so thatwas 2020 over the last five
years.
I've spent a lot of my timescouring all the data I can find

(32:00):
for signs of landslides inAlaska.
And this is, I'll make adistinction between slow
landslides.
They might move, you know, ifthey're moving an inch a day,
that's not that slow within slowlandslides.
That's a really fast one.
And then there's catastrophiclandslides.
So these are like, you may notbe able to outrun it.
This might be going 50 miles anhour, 100 miles an hour.
So that's kind of a distinctionthat I'll refer maybe to a

(32:23):
couple times.
So I'm looking for both.
I'm looking for catastrophiclandslides and slow landslides,
but primarily the very largestones.
And that's not...
just because they're moredramatic and stuff.
It's also because I can look atany data and see those.
Whereas if they're reallyrelatively small, they're a lot
harder to identify.
It's a lot harder to actuallysay much about them just looking

(32:46):
at remote sense, so satellitedata.
Anyway, so that led me to findthat actually there is way more
going on in Alaska than werealized.
There are...
just gigantic events happeningthat often like one person might
notice them because it's theirbackyard right they're like whoa
that mountain just fell down andlike flattened a huge forest but

(33:07):
it's like a local story rightand it's not connected into all
the other observations thatother people are are making so
um uh kind of in looking myselfat imagery but also like you
know pilots email me and like italk to people on the street and
they're like i saw a landslidewhen i was flying up from
seattle and i think i've got iton my phone so So that has led

(33:30):
to really recognizing thatthere's a lot more going on
right now than we realized, andit's increasing quite
dramatically.
So I'm very worried that one ofthese events will not be like,
oh, that's interesting.
Some remote forest got a bunchof boulders over it, but it's
going to instead be a highway.
It's going to go into a lake andproduce a tsunami, something
like that.

UNKNOWN (33:50):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (33:50):
And I mean, that's part of what we saw that I
mentioned earlier with Rangeland you said more recently in
Ketchikan as well.
And because our population iskind of dispersed, you know, we
don't, not every landslideaffects, you know,
infrastructure or, you know,human lives, but as they begin
to increase.
And I think in one of the talksI watched from earlier this

(34:13):
year, you said that they'reincreasing in occurrence over
the last, you know, I don't knowif it's five years or 10 years
and then previous, I don't knowif it's because of, you know,
they weren't documented prior tothat.
Or if you're now that theattention is there, you're like,
like you're saying like, holysmokes, like this is happening a
lot and they're everywhere.
Um, but what are the.

(34:35):
major ones that keep you up atnight that you think about, that
you've found?
Yeah, if I were to just

SPEAKER_02 (34:40):
start rattling some off, I'll have to stop at some
point.
There are actually quite a few.
But Portage Lake, there's a bigactive slope that's creeping
there.
That one, I think, tops my list.
And that one with all theinfrastructure down.
So there's a lot of peoplearound there.
There's also like a lot of ourinfrastructure goes through
Portage Valley, like two raillines, highway, electric

(35:04):
transmission.
Most of the internet that goesinto Anchorage goes through
Portage Valley, either fromWhittier or from Homer.
So it's a really scary place.
It's one of the most active slowlandslides I've seen.
It's produced a couple of small,small, not small, like if you
were standing there, you'd belike, that's gigantic.
But they're small relative tothe ones that generate tsunamis,

(35:24):
catastrophic failures.
So that one's really top of mylist.
Berry Arm, where there's a lotof work going on by the USGS,
that is really an importantplace to look.
They're Things that happened in2022 are kind of as scary as it
gets, but it didn't fail.
That's good.
That doesn't mean it won't thenext time.
There are places up along theMatanuska River, up in the

(35:45):
Glacier View area, where a bunchof active slopes, we've seen big
failures happen.
The most recent really dramaticone was around Halloween of
2023.
So this is stuff that'sdeveloping right now.
Fortunately, that was inland alittle ways.
Everyone has been...
not actually hitting thehighway, but there have been

(36:05):
things that are close.
Um, another one that I'm reallyconcerned about right now is
actually, it's a kind of more ofa region around Adigan pass.
So up in the Brooks range wheretrans Alaska pipeline goes
through there and the Daltonhighway, we've known there's
some issues with, um, a type ofslow landslide that some people
call a frozen debris lobe.

(36:25):
And there's in particular, oneof them that they actually had
to move the highway to kind ofrun away from this landslide.
That's moving, uh, Slowly, butnot that slowly down the
mountain.
Well, it turns out there's a lotmore going on up there.
And like you mentioned, adecade.
Yeah, on that timescale, it hasreally– there are many mountain
slopes that have gone fromlooking totally boring and

(36:47):
normal to all of a suddenthere's cracks opening up.
There's chunks sliding slowlydown, some of them failing
catastrophically.
And if you imagine chunks ofmountains sliding– three
quarters of a mile down and outinto flat areas.
So that I really worry aboutwith the pipeline and the
highway there.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_00 (37:05):
especially because, I mean, with planning, you know,
we talk about, you know, naturalgas and doing new lines or, you
know, what we're going to do todevelop the resources that we do
have.
It seems like it should be ahuge consideration, you know,
what this landscape is going tolook like in five years or even
if it's safe.
to exist where it is now, right?

SPEAKER_02 (37:26):
Yeah, I mean, I really think that we are leaving
these things understudied as werun forward with certain
development.
You know, we're putting$250million into a bridge across a
landslide in Denali at PrettyRocks.
We're looking at...
tens, maybe over$100 million inimprovements to the Eklutna

(37:46):
hydropower project.
There are huge slopeinstabilities, slow landslides
above Eklutna Lake that couldthreaten that facility.
We're talking about, you know,$40 billion for a natural gas
pipeline that would go rightthrough this hotspot in the
Brooks Range and through a placeof somewhat less concern, but
not no concern in the AlaskaRange.

(38:08):
Now, I don't know if we putsome, some of that, some tiny
fraction, like 0.1% of whatwe're talking about into
research, what will we find?
And I don't know, right?
That's why you have to do theresearch is you don't know what
the answer is.
Uh, but to me, it seems like weare under investing in the kind

(38:32):
of preparation and research endof this.
We're just running ahead withdevelopment without actually
understanding what's going on.
And this becomes a lot moreurgent from my perspective when
I see places like the GlacierView, Upper Matanuska area, like
the Adigan Pass area, and likePortage, where if I go back 10

(38:54):
years, it's like, eh, it doesn'tseem too bad.
There's some things to worryabout here.
And I go to the present, and I'mlike, oh, my God, things are
coming apart.
The fact that that's changing sofast.
I mean, I was just having aconversation with someone at
Portage, And they're like, oh,okay, well, come back when
you've done some more research.
And I'm like, you know, there'sa lot we don't know, but I want
to be clear that if we werehaving this conversation even

(39:16):
three years ago, I would be alot less nervous.
There are changes that havehappened in that slope in such a
short period of time.
So if you're going to pursuesome big development project,
I'm like, Yeah, I'd like to Imean, I would like to have
certainty, but I don't rightnow.
We need to do some research.
That may sound like me fishingfor money.

(39:37):
I'm like kind of the worst atthat.
And I do a lot of stuff where Ido not get paid for what I'm
doing.
And I'm OK with that.
Like, I'm not complaining aboutthat.
But the there are things wheregetting it done does take some
money.
And I think we need to see.
investment in in this researchrather than just running full

(39:59):
bore i mean there's a yeah idon't know what the cost is but
it's definitely millions tens ofmillions maybe more um a cruise
ship facility going in atwhittier it's being built you
know right now and they areright underneath a chunk of
mountain that's moving like aninch a year that's not the
fastest in the world yeah but ifit was stable it wouldn't move

(40:21):
at all you know and we haven'tstudied it I mean, it's like
literally like we could have atwo-minute conversation and you
would be like the world expertin that because we just don't
know what's going

SPEAKER_00 (40:31):
on.
And it seems like when the stateis going so hard in developing
the natural resources or theywant to go hard with natural gas
and with oil, with the cruiseship industry, you would think
that there would be some–concern about protecting those
investments.
That's one thing to just drivehard and drill, baby, drill, for

(40:55):
lack of a better term.
But there should be some type ofresearch that goes into that to
be able to protect thatinvestment long-term.
Otherwise, it could bedevastating.
To have this knowledge, usingthe cruise ship example, to have
this knowledge and then fiveyears down the line, you have
this catastrophic event, andit's like, what were we

(41:17):
thinking?
And it's like, well, We weretrying to do the work to be able
to make a plan to, you know, andit kind of falls on on the
ground because, you know, Idon't know if it's a money thing
or, you know, just the quickreturn on investment is there.
And the research is more of alonger grueling, you know, we're
not seeing results right away.

(41:37):
type thing, but it seems likethere would be some, some value
in, in doing the work to get thedata.

SPEAKER_02 (41:44):
Yeah.
I mean, I'm, I'm veryunderstanding and, and, uh,
people are like, yeah, we'removing forward.
We're going to do a thing.
I mean, as now I'm a traildeveloper and like, I feel like
that.
I'm like, OK, I've thoughtthrough some of the concerns and
I've done my best to mitigatethose.
But like, let's stop talking.
Let's build.
Right.
Yeah.
And and so I feel I feel likeI'm really understanding of

(42:07):
people who are like, yeah, we'rejust moving forward.
We can't just keep talking aboutthis.
And and so I think.
I think it's ultimately there isno easy answer.
And I try to be.
If I say something like, I thinkwe're under investing in the
research, like I just said, Itry to be very self-critical of

(42:27):
saying something like thatbecause all that confirmation
bias, like whatever, I'mobsessed with disaster.
So I'm going to tell you thatthis is really important and we
should be doing more of thisthing.
You should be skeptical.
Like, you know, press me on thedetails there.
And I might be like, well,actually, I haven't really
thought about that aspect.
You know, there might be thingsthat are just, you know, I've

(42:51):
inadvertently ignored orwhatever.
So I'm very understanding ofthat enthusiasm to move forward
on a project that seems like agood idea.
But when I've looked at thisproblem...
I really think we're in a badplace.
I think that we need to eitherreally ramp up what we're doing
here or it's going to be asituation where, say, there's a

(43:13):
direct hit on a cruise ship.
Basically, you have a landslidegoes into the water and just a
few miles away is a cruise shipand that cruise ship rolls over
and thousands of people die.
Or we see all of ourinfrastructure in Portage Valley
wiped out.
Or we see a place that I haven'tthought about at all because,
you know, I'm just...
a geologist looking at somepictures, like I didn't, you

(43:35):
know, it's not the one that Iwas worried about.
And all of a sudden things comeunglued.
Um, I think that the most likelyscenario is that we will not be
ahead of the curve and it'sgoing to be really bad.
Um, so that's where my goal is.
I, the way I think about lookingat these problems is, um, It's

(43:57):
almost like a game.
It's like, where do I put mychips on the roulette wheel?
I want to do my best to actuallyget ahead of one of these
things.
For me personally, it's a lot ofguessing.
I look at other examples.
I'm like, okay, how havedifferent slopes responded over
time?
What sorts of variables seemimportant?

(44:19):
All right, this one seems prettyimportant, but I don't want to
put all my chips there because Iknow as a geologist, I'm
probably wrong.
Ultimately, nature is supercomplicated.
Something different is going tohappen.
So I want to put some over heretoo, and I want to put some over
there.
And a win is that I actually dosomething useful.
How simple is that?

(44:39):
Well, it's not as simple as itmight seem.
We're working closely withstakeholders who are facing
these risks.
And they are working on changinghow they approach things.
I'd say we're very early in thatprocess.
We're working on trying to getinstruments out there that might
provide information that wouldgive them a little heads up that

(45:01):
maybe something might happentomorrow.
This might be the time to getout of the way.
So I really hope it would be sofantastic if...
This disaster that without myefforts would just be horrific,
that instead we're a littleahead of it.
People get out of the way.
Maybe there's still seriousconsequences.

(45:22):
Maybe even people still die.
But it isn't as bad as it wouldhave been because of my efforts.
And I think it's a long shot.
I think that the most likelyscenario is that we will see
something where I'm like, I wastrying, but I wasn't there.
I didn't think of the rightthings.
I didn't talk to the rightpeople.
That is the more likelyscenario.
But I'm hoping for the best,trying to put my effort in to

(45:47):
have some effect.

SPEAKER_00 (45:49):
So this might be a good transition into the
metaphor that you used in one ofyour talks called the bear's
dilemma.
Do you want to just kind of sumup what you were going for in
explaining that?
Yeah, I mean, I think

SPEAKER_02 (46:06):
a lot about humans as animals, not unlike a bear.
Like, I love bears.
I spend a lot of time out in thewilderness.
I see bears.
And, you know, they're justdoing their thing, right?
And that's what we'd like to do,too.
You know, as humans, like, we'relike, yeah, okay, I'm going to
go, whatever, just kind of do mything.
And if some, you know, geologistjumps out of the bushes next to

(46:29):
the bear and is like, I've got aprobabilistic hazard map and I
have a pulse coherent radarmeasuring device and I was
wondering if you were interestedin them.
that bear quite reasonably isnot going to be interested,
especially if there's somethinglike, okay, I could go catch
some salmon over here.
And I think people, it'ssomewhat the same thing.
And I love that about people.

(46:49):
People are like, they have theirthing going on and they've got
passion and enthusiasm and meshowing up to tell them that I'm
really worried about this slopeabove where they live or
whatever.
It's not going to make their daylike that.
That's bad news.

(47:09):
And I don't like being the onebringing bad news.
And so I'm really understandingif people are like, yeah, you
know, I just don't want to havethis conversation.
And I don't think that's wrongat all.
But we do have this one thingthat that bears don't have that
we have is this whole elaboratecivilization, this whole thing
of trying to work as a group to.

(47:32):
coordinate these huge effortsmoving forward into the future.
And that can include foresight.
And I think one of the thingsthat's an example of where we
can aspire to be something thatis, I would say, better than the
way the bears would.
If you had a town, it was allbears, they wouldn't do this.

(47:56):
But maybe if it's humans, theywould.
And that's when we're looking atthese...
what I would call kind ofhistory-altering disasters.
And this is not to minimizesomething like the terrible
experience and the deaths inWrangell, for instance.
But that's something, they clearthe road, they have a funeral

(48:18):
for the people who have died.
They think about how they wouldprepare for future events, but
they can kind of continue onwith what they're doing.
But if you're a community that'sdependent on cruise ship
industry and or if you are acruise ship company and yeah the
cruise ship gets rolled overlike that is going to change the

(48:41):
course of history and um at thevery least for years and
potentially it's going to put uson you know a different route
that is not one that we're thatwe're looking for if you have an
event that you know takes outhalf of a community i mean we
look at the impacts i grew upwith stories of 1964 earthquake

(49:03):
um and uh and we really inseldovia where i live we look at
that as this history alteringevent um and you know they're
just stories right we don't knowwhat history would have been
without the 64 earthquake but uhi think that that's the sort of
thing where we can if we'rereally embracing what science

(49:27):
can bring to the table and whatwe can do in planning, that's
what civilization has to offer.
And we could be in a much betterplace if we are actually looking
ahead to these things and tryingto get ahead of that disaster
rather than just reacting.

SPEAKER_00 (49:44):
Yeah, I agree.
I had wrote down in my notesthat the superpower of science
seems to be that it's bestequipped to mitigate those
disasters those maybe lowprobability but high impact
events.
The difficult part is convincingpeople

SPEAKER_02 (50:03):
that that's important.
I mean, one thing to note aboutscience is science does not do
things well.
Like you said, mitigate.
It's not like you just take andscience it and then all of a
sudden the threat is not there.
That takes the people, thestakeholders or maybe the
government or whatever toactually step up and do that.

(50:25):
And so science, what it can dois it can provide information I
look at science as it's kind ofthe art of being wrong.
Like if you're actually, sosometimes when we learn like the
scientific method, which I thinkis not the greatest way to
express it, but one of thethings that it emphasizes is

(50:46):
like build a hypothesis and thentest it.
But what's really powerful aboutthat idea is that you're
hypothesizing, you think you'reright, right?
You've picked a hypothesis that,because that's what you think is
actually going on.
But now you're going to beforced to test it.
And that means the onlyinformation you can get out of

(51:08):
this is you can find out thatyou're wrong, which is not what
most people instinctively...
Like bears, also, I think if youwere to try to convince them to
do this, they wouldn't be realinto it.
Humans too, like if we think weknow what's going on, we
actually don't want to be wrong.
Like that's normal for a human.
Science has built this strangeculture where...

(51:29):
whether through motivation orconsequence, negative
consequence, you're kind offorced to test your hypothesis
and to convince other scientistswho maybe don't care if you're
wrong, that you haven't, likewhen you do that test, that
you've actually tested thathypothesis.

(51:51):
And so you can say, look, itsurvived this test.
But what that means is you havea lot of experiences to be like,
I think I know what's going on.
I'm really excited about this.
I'm going down this road andI've built this whole way of
measuring this.
It may not be an experiment.
It may be whatever it is.
And then you make themeasurement and you're like,
actually i was wrong and i can'ti can't avoid it you know and

(52:13):
that's a that's a unique power ithink of science is that ability
to be wrong and and thus to kindof progress understanding
however that is not a way tolike you don't build a bridge
just by being wrong like you cango through and do a bunch of
experiments and science up likethe idea of a bridge but you
need a bunch of engineers youneed a bunch of people who know

(52:34):
what to do with concrete youneed

SPEAKER_01 (52:35):
yeah

SPEAKER_02 (52:36):
It's a different thing to build that bridge.
And so science is only part ofthat equation.
But I think it's a veryimportant part.

SPEAKER_00 (52:43):
Yeah.
One of the things you hadmentioned in your talk about the
bear's dilemma was that we oftencan't reduce the probability of
a landslide.
You have a great, I love thatyou use pictures and graphs, and
it's very visual, and I didappreciate that.
You can't reduce the probabilityof a landslide, but we can move
left.

(53:04):
And that phrase stuck with me.
So can you break down what thatmeans?
If we can't reduce theprobability, like some of these
things we expect to be imminent,how do we shift left?

SPEAKER_02 (53:17):
So there are two components.
If we use the word risk in atechnical sense, what that means
is it's a combination of theprobability of something
occurring and the consequencesof that.
So if we imagine landslide,there's a house at the bottom of
the hill or a potentiallandslide, like a slope that's
steep or has some signs of slowlandslide activity, a house at

(53:39):
the bottom of the hill, you cango through and figure out how
likely it is that that landslidewould happen.
And that is part of that riskequation.
That's your probability part,which actually is on the
vertical axis if we wereactually showing this graph.
So probability is one piece.
The other part is theconsequence.

(53:59):
So land happens maybe it'sactually a relatively small
version of the landslide and itlike you know a few rocks bounce
down and they like make a bighole in the garage and you know
take out your lawnmower rightconsequences you know you're
distressed about this but youknow it's okay and so that's the
low consequence thing and maybecumulatively like there are more

(54:21):
scenarios that look like thatand then there's another one
where it sweeps through and likeyou can't even tell where her
house was before you know maybeit gets your neighbor's houses
too So the consequence, veryhigh, a little lower
probability.
We kind of want to be able tothink about those together.
Now, what can you do about it?
Well, there are some cases,especially if you've got, you

(54:43):
know, a billion dollars at yourdisposal where you can actually
reduce the probability of thelandslide, but it is quite
difficult and often essentiallyimpractical.
So shifting that probability,tough.
However, let's say you put, Imean, I'm working on these
instruments that I'm hoping wecan get down to a cost of under

(55:04):
$100, like really minimalsystems.
You have that up there.
You have a whole system so thatyour phone beeps if the
landslide or if the slope aboveyou is starting to behave in
ways that look scary.
Or you've got really goodmonitoring of weather forecasts
that can help you understandwhether the rain that's going to

(55:25):
hit that slope could trigger alandslide.
And then you're like, okay,well, if this happens, I'm going
to get out of here.
And you can't take your housewith you.
So, you know, you're still thepotential that all of that
investment in your home andstuff would be destroyed.
But you don't lose your life.
Your family doesn't lose theirlives.
That is a way of reducing theconsequence.

(55:47):
And and so that's something thatwe can do at relatively low cost
and move.
That's so the left in this caseis moving towards lower
consequence.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (55:59):
Yeah.
And that's technology thatyou're developing.
It sounds like it's much similarto like a like an early tsunami
warning system is kind of whatyou're working towards to
achieve with landslideoccurrence, like with with
notifying people to, you know,hey.
Under these conditions, the riskis higher.

(56:20):
You have maps that I alreadyhave areas identified that are
already at high risk.
And so implementing anadditional measure to warn
people, kind of similar to likewhen you hear the sirens blaring
for like a tsunami or that youget the alerts on your phone,
like you were saying, that'ssomething that you're currently
developing.

(56:40):
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (56:41):
something that's similarities like...
It maybe is, rather than makingthe analogy to the tsunami
warning system, thinking aboutAlaska Volcano Observatory and
monitoring volcanoes is useful.
And right now is a good time tothink about that because SPUR
has been really active.
It may well erupt soon.
I don't have any secret insiderinformation on that.

(57:02):
But Alaska Volcano Observatoryis actually a pretty fantastic
organization.
I would say it's one of, like ifI were to point to one model
for...
government-led, agency-leddisaster mitigation.
And I'm using mitigation verybroadly.
They don't prevent volcanoesfrom erupting, right?

(57:23):
But they get information outthere in a way that's useful to
people and, for instance,aircraft.
So in that case, they have allthese instruments on Mount Spur,
seismometers being a reallyimportant example.
And they watch for signs thatmagma is moving up under the

(57:45):
volcano, and that that mightmean there's an eruption.
And so they can't tell you forsure that it is going to happen
at 2 p.m.
tomorrow, but they're watchingthis carefully.
They have a lot of information.
We have a lot of case studies ofwatching volcanoes in this way,
and they're reasonably decentsuccess rate.

(58:08):
Like we do actually usually getahead of the curve on those.
So landslides, if we're talkingabout Another distinction that
ends up coming up here isshallow landslides versus deep
landslides.
And they end up being fairlydifferent approaches for this.
So shallow landslides would belike the soil and trees sliding
down the mountain.
That is Wrangell, that deadlylandslide in Wrangell was a very
shallow landslide.

(58:29):
It was a good example of a largeshallow landslide.
Obviously terrible.
So it's not, you know, they arevery important to look at.
Shallow landslides, themonitoring approach usually
focuses on the weather becausethese are almost all triggered
by extreme rain.
Now, you can throw an earthquakein there, complicate the
situation a bit.

(58:50):
But very often it is extremerain.
We can forecast that a few daysin advance.
It is really helpful to havemore local weather monitoring.
And so a lot of people focusedon this are working on getting
more weather stations out,basically.
So, okay, that's one wholedirection.
Deep-seated landslides, it canbe triggered by extreme rain.

(59:12):
but not always.
And actually fairly often theykind of surprise us if we aren't
monitoring really closely.
But one thing that helps us outis usually if it's gonna end up
going a hundred miles an hourdown the mountain, it is
actually probably going toaccelerate for at least days,
maybe even months prior to thatfailure.
So if you can measure how muchit's moving as a slow landslide,

(59:35):
then you can look for patternsof acceleration that you're
like, that is the kind ofacceleration.
Much like AVO would be lookingat Mount Spur, they're like,
yeah, this looks like magmarising.
So we would say, oh yeah, thislooks like the kind of
acceleration that mightculminate in catastrophic
failure.
In some ways, if we have thebest data out there, we might be

(59:57):
able to say two days from now inthe afternoon is our best guess.
And we might get 50% accurate onthat, not 100%.
But we might actually have apretty good estimation like
that.
A lot of cases, we see theseaccelerations.
We get all worked up about it.
And then it slows down, which isgreat news.

(01:00:17):
But in Norway, they had one casewhere they evacuated a town like
16 or 17 times.
It's pretty frustrating, right?
So there's kind of good news,bad news there.
The good news is that these big,deep-seated landslides, the sort
of thing that can produce atsunami or can sweep a huge area
out of a valley, those usuallydo have precursory activity.

(01:00:42):
if you're watching for it.
And the bad news is that they'recomplicated.
They don't always behave asexpected.
So you end up facing false alarmissues and that sort of thing.
Okay.
I do

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:56):
want to talk one policy, not issue, but something
that's very relevant andapplicable to what we're talking
about today.
This was on the 8th, SenatorMurkowski's introduced or
reintroduced legislation toreauthorize the National
Landslide Preparedness Act.
So I'm just going to read aportion of this.

(01:01:18):
Many communities across Alaskaare still reeling from the
aftermath of recent landslides.
Landslides.
Most recently, Ketchikan isworking to stabilize roads
following the Wolf Pointlandslide in March.
Many of those facing significantlandslide hazards lack access to
sufficient data, monitors, andforecasting abilities to warn
residents of when they are indanger.
Sounds very familiar.
I think I just heard this.

(01:01:40):
Senator Rakowski said that thislegislation provides resources
to communities, allowing them tocreate response plans and
improve emergency preparedness.
We must do everything we can tosafeguard our communities and
protect Alaskans from fatalnatural disasters.
And that is why I will continueto advocate for the
reauthorization of this bill.
I mentioned to you earlier thatbefore, you know, learning more

(01:02:02):
about you, studying the thingsthat you've done, if I would
have seen that headline rollacross my newsfeed, I probably
wouldn't have given it muchthought.
I know like, oh, yeah, we didhave a landslide, you know, kind
of vaguely remember a few inrecent history.
But then kind of getting intothe weeds with you about this
topic, this is it kind of hasnew life for me seeing that.
And I hope that's something thatpeople realize as they listen to

(01:02:25):
this is that, um, it's, it's apretty serious topic.
Uh, it's a very urgent topic andI'm glad to see that, you know,
at least this is beingreintroduced, you know,
legislation is beingreintroduced to extend the
funding funding for USGS.
Correct.
Is that where this is allmostly, mostly comes through so
that this work can continue tobe funded so that, you know,

(01:02:46):
whether, um, Was it weatherstations be built so we could
get more accurate data and beingable to...
I don't want to use mitigatenow.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:00):
Oh, no, it's fine.
I'm always a little cautiousabout that word because some
people assume that meansstopping the landslide, which it
sometimes is used narrowly thatway.
When I use it, I mean just doanything to make it less bad.
So, yeah.
So

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:15):
I see that in the news, but is there any concrete
step that you would have peopledo?
Like if you could tell everyonelike, hey, do this thing so that
we can kind of either, is itawareness?
Is it policymaking?
Is it just, how do Alaskansaffect change concerning this

(01:03:38):
issue?

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:39):
Yeah, well, I mean, there are actually a lot of
things at a lot of differentlevels.
Um, uh, yeah, one thing I'dadvertise out there is the
state.
Now that the landslide programat the state at DGGS, they have
a landslide reporter app, reallysimple, like just put a few bits
of information in, but thathelps, um, learn about when,
especially smaller landslidesthat we might not be able to
study otherwise are happening.

(01:04:01):
Um, and this is through thedivision at natural resources.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, yep.
And, um, uh, so, uh, Actually, Ilove it when people contact me
with questions, withobservations about landslides.
So you can engage in theinformation out there, and
that's a step in that direction.
Anyone who lives below big,steep slopes should be aware

(01:04:24):
that they may have landslidedanger there.
And it isn't necessarily thatanyone's going to come up and
knock on their door and let themknow about that.
It does kind of fall toindividuals.
This Landslide PreparednessAct...
is I think a really importanteffort and a step forward.
And I really think it's awesomethat Murkowski has been

(01:04:45):
advocating for that.
And she's really wasinstrumental in getting the
initial bill passed a few yearsago.
And I think what that, I guessthat approach is kind of shows
an awareness that I don't see ina lot of places of how we have
this big problem and we don'treally have the structure within

(01:05:07):
the government.
Like normally, natural hazards,it is kind of something we
tackle with the government.
And it kind of makes sensebecause these are big problems
that stretch acrossjurisdictions.
And it's not really, it's notlike, oh, let's make this a
for-profit thing.
Like there isn't like a profitmotive to solve the problem.
And so it makes sense that thegovernment would be taking these

(01:05:29):
things on.
It turns out that for landslidesspecifically, we are...
We have very little like a vo isa really sophisticated
organization It was kind of alot of the existed before but a
lot of what has been built therewas triggered by a nearly
Terrible disaster worked out atthe last moment in 1989 when a

(01:05:52):
jet flew into an ash cloud fromreadout right here And so
they've had that's 89 as welland whatever that's 30, you know
36 years They've had some timeto kind of figure this out and
figure out how do they actuallyinteract with information, get
information to where it makes adifference.
Landslides, I would say where weare right now is less than 10%

(01:06:17):
of the way towards where AVO is.
So we've got a long ways to go.
It's going to take a lot ofeffort and concerted energy from
people.
And then the other half of thisequation is that I think the
problem is really bad.
And I think we can make thatargument in a pretty
straightforward way and say,well, yeah, a dozen people, I

(01:06:38):
think 13 people have died in thelast decade from landslides in
Alaska.
It's a serious problem.
So we've got that.
Looking forward, I think it'sactually worse than even that
would suggest.
But we have this lack of...
a infrastructure for tacklingthe problem and the problem is

(01:07:01):
bad and growing.
And so this combination isreally scary.
I think that we, I think veryfew people, even people in that
are involved in this appreciatejust how big a challenge we have
in front of us.
Um, so from that perspective,uh, I think that one thing that
the general public, that I, aperspective I want to get out to

(01:07:22):
the general public is that, um,Thank you.
Thank you.

(01:07:47):
Alaskans are great naturalists.
We all spend so much time out inthe wilderness, or many of us
do.
And those kind of the things youlearn, you go out and you're
like, huh, the ground's crackinghere.
Those trees are tilted.
Like, you know, it doesn't takelike a PhD in geology to say,
okay, there's something going onhere.
And yeah, I feel like I'm notexpressing that very coherently,

(01:08:10):
but I think it's reallyworthwhile to engage, especially
with local representatives andbut all the way up to our
federal legislative delegationand saying, hey, yeah, I see how
this is a concern for me where Ilive, and so I'd like to see

(01:08:32):
more action on this.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:34):
Can people follow the work that you're doing
specifically?
You mentioned, you know, peopleare welcome to email you.
Is there any way like the peopleyou said you're not really big
on social media?
Is there any other groups you'reaffiliated with or where people
could kind of see how thisprogresses like with the work
that you're doing?

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:52):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I feel like there's some
things I do, you know, fairlywell.
I try to get out and givepresentations.
Definitely can, you know, ifyou're like, I not only want to,
I'll come give a presentation.
I'm happy to chat with peoplelike it could be an opportunity.

(01:09:13):
So that sort of thing is great.
I do go on Facebook now andthen.
If you want to find me there,that's great.
I won't say that I post therevery much or pay really close
attention.
We have a website.
It's kind of out of date in alot of ways.
It's something where it's like,okay, yeah, we should dedicate
energy to this, but then thatenergy goes somewhere else.
So I would say, yeah, I'm reallybig on one-on-one conversations.

(01:09:38):
I spend a lot of my time talkingto people.
If you're like, hey, mysituation, I think This is a
conversation I'd like to have.
Really do reach out to me.
Maybe we can put the GroundTruth Alaska contact email on
there, which isgroundtruthtrekking and the
email address.
But contact atgroundtruthtrekking.org will get

(01:09:59):
to me.
Yeah, boy, I wish I like I kindof aspire to start a blog.
It's so 2005.
But actually, my wife startedthe Alaska Energy blog, along
with a colleague of hers.
And it's not that it has likemillions of views and stuff.
But the people who arespecifically interested in this,

(01:10:19):
it provides a lot of value.
So I really it's like I look atthat.
And it's like, it's inspiring.
I'm like, that would be a way tojust kind of get these things
out there in a somewhat durableform.
But I'm not there yet.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:31):
You can also start a podcast if you want to.
If I can do it, you can do it,Hig.

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:34):
Yeah, probably.
This is where I'd like topartner with someone else who,
yeah, although I'm not anaudiophile, and it's important
to do it right.
I can tell you've been workinghard on it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:44):
I appreciate that.
Well, thank you so much for thework that you're doing.
I know you probably don't getthanked enough for the work that
you do.
And you're passionate about it.
You're very knowledgeable aboutit.
But then you're also on theground seeing it firsthand.
And I'm happy just to be a partof that amplification, if you
will, of the work that you'redoing.

(01:11:05):
And I hope it resonates withpeople.
I hope that more and more eyesare open to, you know, the
geohazards in our state and howthey're progressing and, you
know, the threat that we're allfaced because of them or the
threat that is there.
the threat we're faced withbecause of them.

(01:11:26):
And I hope it opens some eyesand some ears.
And I hope this legislation goesthrough that Senator Murkowski
is presenting.
And hopefully, at least thefunding will be there to be able
to explore this more, to developthese warning systems.
Because like you said, we can'tnecessarily stop them from
occurring.

(01:11:46):
We can just do our best toreduce the consequences of them.
I hope that happens.
Thank you again.
I know you got to get out ofhere, so I want to wrap up, but
thank you again, Dr.
Higman, Hig, and hopefully we'llsee you around.
Oh, thanks very much.
It was great conversation.