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Priorities Podcast
The technologies modernizing Alaska's avalanche management
00:22:25
In Alaska, state officials responsible for keepin…
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- [00:02]
A
Hello and welcome to State Scoop's Priorities podcast. I'm Sofia Foxo, a reporter for State Scoop. This week we're talking about Alaska, where avalanches and extreme weather are a way of life and technology, like drones, are changing how the state prepares and responds to these unpredictable events. But first, here are the biggest state IT stories of the week. The Minnesota Department of Human Services last week distributed data breach notification letters disclosing that the demographic records of nearly 304,000 people had been compromised last fall. An unauthorized user also accessed more detailed information, including Medicaid ID numbers and partial Social Security numbers of more than 1200 people. California is not required to turn over its full voter registration list to the federal government after a federal judge last week granted a motion to dismiss a Department of justice lawsuit filed last September. District Judge David O. Carter said he was unpersuaded by the DOJ's attempts to use provisions of the Help America Vote act and the Civil Rights act to force the state to share entire unredacted voter rolls containing the sensitive personal information of millions of residents. The Illinois Accountability Commission last week made it easier for residents to share information about possible misconduct by federal agents with the launch of a web form that allows people to submit videos, written accounts, or other information. The effort comes after a recent Department of Homeland Security operation in Chicago known as Operation Midway Blitz, aimed at arresting illegal immigrants and cracking down on sanctuary cities. Alaska is a pretty unique state in terms of landscape and topography. It has towering mountain ranges, vast boreal forest, immense tundra, millions of lakes, extensive glaciers, one of the continent's longest coastlines, and even volcanic activity. To help cover so much ground, the state Department of Transportation has turned to drone technology and explosive mitigation. From locating avalanche victims to assessing unstable snow and supporting search and rescue missions across vast remote areas, drones are becoming a critical tool in the state for keeping both residents and first responders safe. To help explain how this technology is being used, I interviewed Timothy Glassett, Statewide Avalanche and Artillery Program manager in the Department of Transportation. He tells me about the integration of remote avalanche control systems and drones for avalanche mitigation emergency response. Tell me about the types of avalanches that Alaska sees and how common they are and what type of destruction they can they can cause.
- [02:59]
B
Yeah, great question. Alaska is so big that we get every type of avalanche imaginable. Unlike the lower 48, the other US dots, we have the only high arctic avalanche area in the United States and then all the way down to coastal areas where we have fjords and potentially very wet, loose avalanches and those can be destructive and they can be small. It totally depends on what kind of avalanche problem we're dealing with and the storm. Right now, our capital has been evacuated in some areas because of the avalanche risk. So the capital of Alaska is impacted by avalanches.
- [03:52]
A
That's insane. And for some of our listeners who may not be aware, they've probably heard the term avalanche, but they may not know exactly what causes it. Can you break that down for us and define what causes an avalanche and how they occur?
- [04:07]
B
So we deal with snow avalanches. There are a lot of different types of snow avalanches. The most destructive is a slab avalanche. And you need a couple ingredients for avalanches to pose a risk to the traveling public or state employees. You need significant terrain steep enough to slide. You need snow on the ground, and you need snow that is reactive to sliding. And you need weather to contribute to that. And so we mitigate that risk through a couple different measures. We use long term permanent measures. So infrastructure that holds back or prohibits avalanches from reaching whatever our infrastructure is at risk, be it a roadway or a bridge or something like that. And then we also do short term measures to reduce the risk. And that could be with explosive mitigation or preventative closures. So completely closing the roadway. Right now. As of this morning, we had two roadways in Alaska that were preventatively closed due to the avalanche risk. We also do, like I said, explosive mitigation. And that can be done with helicopters, that can be done with 105 millimeter least artillery from the US Army. That can be done with hand charges, that can be done with gas exploders and you know, different methods like that.
- [05:41]
A
When you're talking about explosive mitigation, it, I mean, I'm based in California where we have a lot of wildfires, but the forestry department engages in these controlled burns in order to blow through some of the dry brush in a controlled and supervised manner so it doesn't create issues or potential hazards into wildfire season. Are these explosive mitigations? Are these kind of like controlled avalanches?
- [06:09]
B
Absolutely. And you know, we, we try not to use the word control because we can't really control nature, but we do our best to mitigate the avalanche risk. And the idea, you know, similar to wildfire, like you noted, is to when we can, when it's safe and when we have a closed roadway, trigger avalanches preventatively so that we are removing some of the snow volume in the starting zone and you know, decreasing the, the volume of natural avalanche activity through explosive
- [06:42]
A
mitigation that makes a lot of sense. I mean, as you mentioned, Alaska has some pretty unique and albeit challenging topography. There's mountain ranges, there's fjords, it has a very coastline, it's got boreal forest, and it's got some pretty remote communities. How do you think about covering like an area that extensively when it comes to mitigation and risk, especially in terms of emergency management?
- [07:16]
B
Yeah, great, great question. What we've done over the last two years is we commissioned a study to really look at our avalanche risk and define it in terms of the avalanche hazard index, which is a way to rank high risk highways based off of a formula that's been around for, since the 1980s and it's been updated here and there, but it's kind of the international standard. And so we've been able to use that and rank all of our areas and we have staff there that do avalanche work. And with that said, you know, we're, we're moving staff around if we need to, to these areas that are, that are currently experiencing these, these large avalanche events. And as we go through a phasing out military artillery to commercial commercially available products, we are really targeting those high risk areas for mitigation. And some of that, some of that mitigation includes technology that will decrease the time that traffic is stopped and closed roadways are closed, and decrease the amount of manpower required to run an artillery mission.
- [08:37]
A
What type of technology are you, are you talking about?
- [08:42]
B
Yeah, so we use in the avalanche industry, remote avalanche control systems. The acronym is racks, and those systems are, they're all over the world right now. Europe has been using them for decades. In fact, California, where you're at, they've had gas exploder Systems since the 90s, and it's the largest rack system in the US for gas exploders. So Alaska is a little bit behind the rest of the lower 48. We don't have any remote avalanche control systems in place right now, but we are integrating a lot of this new technology and we're leading the field for, not racks, but drones like the one behind me here. No one else in the United States or North America has permission to use drones for avalanche mitigation.
- [09:42]
A
How, how is Alaska using drones for avalanche mitigation? And how is it, I would say, even more valuable in Alaska compared with other states? You know, we're talking about the terrain, the weather, the like, sheer remoteness of some of its communities. How do drones come into play?
- [09:59]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. Again, a lot of the racks are permanent installations so you're. It's a. You know, depending on where it's at and what it is, compared to permanent measures, racks are a little bit lower in capital costs, but over the long term, they have higher maintenance costs. So with drones, they're mobile, so we can take them to different locations where we might not have staff, where we have an avalanche event that is infrequent, maybe on the order of 10 to 15 years, but we still need to go over there and mitigate the risk to clear the roadway and to open it up for the public. So one of the benefits of a drone or a mobile rack platform is the ability to move it around in large geographical locations like Alaska, where you don't have that permanent infrastructure of a rack or you can't really put the money into a location. That is kind of the infrequent risk.
- [11:04]
A
I can also imagine how drones would be a huge benefit for first responders, both in terms of improving the safety risk to them and to make their job and their operations a little bit more efficient. Can you speak about that?
- [11:19]
B
Absolutely. We've been using drones for avalanche work since 2016. For the last 10 years. We use it so we don't have to expose employees to a risk. Right. And we can get a very quick, fast aerial assessment of what's going on. And again, we've been doing that for the last 10 years, so that's. That's kind of second nature for us. It really helps with that emergency response, being able to get out there quickly with aerial assets, and we're not having to contract with helicopters and try to work through their schedule. And once we have a UAS in place in a location, then we can quickly go assess. So it's been a game changer, and it's really increased our response time and our assessment ability.
- [12:10]
A
You mentioned that the Capitol has been evacuated for avalanche risk. Have any drones been sent to survey the area?
- [12:20]
B
Absolutely. And, you know, when I say the capital parts of the Capitol in different neighborhoods, avalanche paths can be mapped, and you can figure out where you're safe and where you're not. So right now, there's still a evacuation order in place in Juneau on one particular avalanche path that's changed since last week. But, yes, drones have been used there to assess what's been going on and what has released, what hasn't
- [12:50]
A
after an avalanche occurs. Can you walk us through kind of an example of how drones can help locate missing people for search and rescue missions or kind of assess a dangerous situation faster than more traditional survey methods?
- [13:08]
B
Absolutely. You know, when a drone happens, if it happens on a open road, hopefully that's not happening, but it does happen. An individual can go out to that location if it's. If they don't want to expose themselves, they can go from their vehicle, launch a drone, and if it's flyable conditions. Right. So that's. That's something that everyone should understand is a drone is an aircraft. It has limitations, but it certainly has a place in our mitigation tools. So once that, once that avalanche is identified, you can fly out to it, not expose yourself. You can throw on thermal. You can search that area and see if there's any heat signatures. It could be a running vehicle, it could be personnel, and then make your assessment from there and go in there and potentially probe the debris with avalanche probes and see if there's something buried, if it has significant avalanche debris. And then from there.
- [14:08]
A
Oh, God, no.
- [14:10]
B
Go ahead. You can do all kinds of mapping. So the other part of drones and, you know, slightly outside of the emergency response is mapping the debris to figure out the volume there and calling in maintenance and operations, saying, hey, there's this much snow, it might take a loader. It might take bulldozers to open it up, and it might take seven days to get it open. So it's just another tool to help us assess outside of the emergency response, I think.
- [14:42]
A
I mean, that's part of emergency management when a disaster occurs and you have to get to some of these communities. I imagine those maps are incredibly useful when sending this type of equipment to help clear debris, to help kind of rebuild infrastructure, I imagine, both in preparation for an incoming disaster and post in terms of recovery. I imagine these. These maps serve a wide variety of purposes.
- [15:12]
B
Absolutely. And, you know, it all ties into one big thing that I'm working on, is phasing out military artillery to these commercial products. So with drones post avalanche event, we're going up to the starting zone and mapping to figure out where these fractures are occurring. And that will further inform us on where to put these systems, the most effective place to put them in the avalanche starting zone. So, absolutely, they become a daily tool for us when we need to fly and get that aerial perspective or in search and rescue.
- [15:46]
A
I'm curious, why are you trying to phase out military artillery in favor of these more commercial products?
- [15:54]
B
Great question. The Alaska Department of Transportation has gone through five different artillery systems. This particular artillery system that we're using is the M101, a 1,105 millimeter howitzer. It's army Leased and maintained. And this model that we're using was designed and built in 1928. It started seeing service in 1945. So it is very old.
- [16:22]
A
I'll say. So it's almost 100 years old. We're in 2026.
- [16:26]
B
Right. And so we're. We're running up against parts to maintain it, qualified personnel to maintain these systems and ammunition. So the. The. And additionally the army, as part of our loas, has said as soon as commercially available products become available, you need to start transitioning away from this military asset.
- [16:54]
A
How long do you think this transition will take?
- [16:59]
B
Some dots in the United States have already transitioned. Some scaries that use military artillery have already transitioned. It could take years and decades. So we're doing our best to maintain the artillery that we have so that we can, as we transition, as we get funding to build out these rack systems, we'll still have artillery to use. One thing to keep in mind is different artillery systems have been cycled through the program, and sometimes there's a stop order from the US army, so we have to immediately cease and desist using that artillery. So if something happened in the avalanche artillery community, the army could tell us to stop immediately, and we wouldn't be able to use it tomorrow. And unfortunately, that has happened in different artillery systems that the avalanche community has used in the past. Mm.
- [18:03]
A
And would the. Would the army issue a stop order if the artillery became unsafe or why. I guess I'm curious why. Why these orders would come in and have kind of an immediate effect as opposed to allowing the transition like you're doing right now.
- [18:22]
B
Absolutely. It's, you know, it's a life safety thing for the most part, and that's what's happened on the 106. Recoilless was a weapon system that had one of those orders. And so it. They will certainly work with us, and they worked with us for decades. Right. But there's a potential out there for that to happen in addition to maintenance issues and getting parts for very old systems, and the cost of ammunition is going up. So these commercial products are all of a sudden looking very viable as an alternative.
- [18:57]
A
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I only have a few more questions for you. When flying these drones, obviously the issue of possibly, like, privacy or airspace concerns come up. How does the state address those when trying to also balance public safety?
- [19:16]
B
Yeah. Good. Quick question. The FAA has given us the authorization to use these systems. Right. And as part of those agreements, we own the airspace through a temporary flight restriction, a tfr. And so anyone that goes into our tfr, it's a big no no. And they have to get permission to go into these airspace airspaces when we're doing any sort of drone work, when we put it to up a tfr. And so in addition to that, we know whenever we're doing avalanche mitigation with explosives or avalanches have the potential to come down onto public or anything like that, we're closing areas, we're closing roadways, we're closing path backcountry trails and things like that. So that's how we're keeping the public and anyone safe.
- [20:10]
A
I'm glad to hear it. And I'm sure everyone in the communities are especially happy as well to get that leadway time so they can prepare to be out of harm's way. My last question for you is kind of looking ahead, how do you see drone technology, you know, sensors, thermal imaging and mapping kind of changing both emergency management and avalanche mitigation in Alaska over the next, I don't know, five to ten years?
- [20:40]
B
Great question. Right now we are bringing on technology, its technology that can detect avalanches via infrasound or Doppler radar. And with that Doppler radar, we're hoping to integrate eventually closure gates where this passive technology on the roadside is looking up at an avalanche path. It's detecting an avalanche in motion and then it's directly sending a signal to either warning lights on the roadway or closure gates and closing the road before public is impacted by that avalanche. So that's truly about, you know, 100% risk reduction for public on on these public roadways. So it's going to be a game changer as we bring this technology on and how we integrate it and push it out through the state. And the current technology has is being funded through federal highway funds and the USDOT and the Smart Technologies grant for radar and infrasound.
- [21:46]
A
Well, I really can't wait to see all these changes and shifts as they come into play. Thank you to Timothy Glassett for participating in that conversation. You can subscribe to the priorities podcast@prioritiespodcast.com and wherever you get your podcast. While you're there, be sure to leave a review or a rating on the podcast page. That small extra step helps more people like you find the show. This podcast is a production of Scoop News Group in Washington, D.C. adam Butler and Carlin Fisher help put it together until next week. I'm Sophia Foxowell. Thanks for listening.