Sitka Sound Science Center’s Lisa Busch: When four inches of rain fell on Sitka before 9:00 a.m., we knew it was not going to be a typical rainy day. The town has a well-functioning tsunami warning system, but had previously experienced few landslides, even though we get about 100 inches of rain a year. So when mud began to move down the hillsides around the town, there were no warnings. Three people died, a house was destroyed, and a lot of city infrastructure was damaged. Volunteers and city workers immediately went to work with shovels.
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