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Search teams ceased operations on Thursday after scouring the
debris field that buried three houses and a coastal stretch of
highway in the island fishing and logging town of Wrangell in
southeast Alaska, according to Austin McDaniel, a spokesperson
for the state Public Safety Department.
The heavily wooded mountainside gave way on Monday night above
the Zimovia Highway following a storm that lashed the region
with heavy rain and high winds. The cascade of muck and
splintered trees roared across the highway and over the
shoreline at the bottom of the slope, swallowing everything in
its path.
On Friday, the Public Safety Department said that a canine
scent-detection team would remain on standby in Wrangell to
resume searching should new information point to a specific area
that warranted further examination.
The agency identified the three confirmed fatalities as Timothy
Heller, 44; his wife, Beth Heller, 36; and their 16-year-old
daughter, Mara. The teen's body was found immediately after the
slide, and her parent's remains were recovered the following
day.
Two younger children, Derek and Kara Heller, aged 12 and 11, are
among the three individuals who remain listed as missing and
were presumed dead. The third missing person was identified as
65-year-old Otto Florschutz, whose wife, Christina, 63, was
found alive but injured on Tuesday morning.
The Hellers' home stood between the edge of the highway and the
shoreline, while the Florschutz couple lived on the opposite
side of the highway. No one was home in the third house
destroyed by the landslide, officials said.
The borough of Wrangell, settled by Russians in the 19th century
in a region inhabited for centuries by the Native Tlingit
people, occupies the northern tip of Wrangell Island in the
Alaska Panhandle region about 155 miles (250 km) sound of
Juneau, the state capital.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Leslie
Adler)
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