Chilkat Valley News - Serving Haines and Klukwan, Alaska since 1966

Steve and Sarah Virg-In's home was one of the five in Haines that the state has categorized  destroyed as a result of the Dec. 2 flooding and landslides. Despite losing the house they owned for 32 years, the Virg-Ins were denied individual assistance from the State of Alaska. He has appealed the state's decision. 

 On Feb. 10, the Virg-Ins received a letter from Alaska's Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management denying them individual assistance because the damage to their home "did not occur to your primary residence." According to state requirements, a person must live in a house for at least six months and a day for the home to be considered a primary residence in order to be eligible for individual assistance." 

 Although the Virg-Ins' house had been up for sale, the couple decided to take it off the market in 2020. In Steve's appeal to the state's decision, he explained that work and medical needs kept them from residing in Haines for the required time. 

 Steve, 69, said he and his wife, 70, invested their retirement savings to pay off their house on Lutak Road, which is now a pile of slumped wreckage. "We didn't have the funds to manage that mortgage. We took a mortgage out on (our Soldotna) house, consolidating our debt. That was our retirement future which is, at this point, not available." 

Steve, an independent contractor and itinerant preacher, has regularly traveled across the state for work. In 2017, he had a fourth heart attack and the couple decided to purchase a seasonal home in Soldotna in order to be closer to the Alaska Heart and Vascular Institute in Soldotna. 

 "We were scheduled for work outside of Haines for about nine months of 2020," Virg-In wrote in his appeal. "(For) anyone (to) say that you have to live in your home six months and one day for it to be your primary home is totally unrealistic in the state of Alaska."

 To date, the Virg-Ins have received about $1,000 in disaster relief-a $550 gift card from the Red Cross and eight Haines Chamber of Commerce vouchers for food and hardware, Steve said. The couple also received this week an anonymous donation of $2,767.

 It will cost the Virg-Ins roughly $34,000 to demolish the house, remediate a buried fuel tank and dispose of the waste at the local landfill, based on estimates from a local contractor and Community Waste Solutions. 

 Steve has asked the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation to help unbury and dispose of at least 300 gallons of heating fuel that is buried beneath sand and wreckage. 

 "We know that the vent pipe for that tank was sheared off and is now allowing water and such into the tank which will at some point start forcing the fuel oil out into the ground and down into the water table which will then make its way to the beach front that is about 75 yards away," Steve wrote to DEC. "Because the tank sits right at the edge of the concrete basement floor, all of the water draining down through the sand in that area is going to end up in the proximity of that tank."

 DEC has thus far denied his request for assistance. 

 "Demolition of the building to access the tank isn't appropriate for the use of the Oil and Hazardous Substance Response Fund, so there isn't a source of funding," wrote a DEC employee. 

 Virg-In also asked officials from the Sierra Club, Audubon Society, Takshanuk Watershed Council and Lynn Canal Conservation for assistance to no avail. 

 "They said we sympathize with you, but we don't deal with those kinds of issues," Virg-In said. 

 The couple plans on returning to Haines in April to begin working on their home, but currently, Steve feels a sense of abandonment from the state and federal government. 

 "We're trying to be sensible to pursue a solution without condemning anyone. But, it's almost like it's an injustice," Steve said. "We have a government that's sending billions in foreign aid but we can't help our own people even in our own state."

 Steve said he hopes to receive assistance from FEMA, but so far the federal agency is only providing funding for public infrastructure. The most the state will provide for individual assistance reconstruction costs is $18,000. The state's and FEMA's preliminary damage assessment for Haines didn't find enough damage to qualify residents for individual federal assistance. 

 Jeremy Zidek, public information officer with the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said the maximum amount FEMA would provide is $36,000. The threshold for FEMA's involvement for individual assistance is 25 destroyed homes, Zidek said. 

 In Haines, nine residents have major damage to their homes and five homes are categorized as destroyed. Although Zidek encourages residents who have been denied state individual assistance to appeal, he said if a home isn't a primary residence as defined by the state, that individual is ineligible.

 "Our programs are programs for last resort," Zidek said. "If people have other places to go and live, even if they're not in that community, they do have a home they can go and live in and our program would not pay for that." 

 Zidek said that in the past 13 years that he's been in the state's emergency management agency, FEMA has activated its individual assistance program three times in Alaska, during the 2018 Cook Inlet earthquake, 2013 flooding that affected Galena and 13 other villages and 2009 flooding in Eagle. 

 The state has received applications from 81 Haines residents who say they need some form of financial relief. As of Wednesday, the state had dispersed $98,691 in housing and individual assistance payments to Haines residents.

 *This story is part of a weekly series to document the lives of residents who have been displaced from their homes since the Dec. 2 storms.