KTUU.com | Alaska's news and information source | Efforts in Eagle turn to cleanup

Efforts in Eagle turn to cleanup

by Jill Burke
Sunday, May 10, 2009

EAGLE, Alaska -- They lost their homes and their belongings to floods, and now people here are starting to clean up. The focus is on rebuilding.

It's been a couple of days since the water and ice moved through, but the damage is intense. One family had to punch through a new road just to get to their cabin, and when they got there -- what a mess.

When the Yukon River swept through, the McMullin family had no idea what they were in for.

"It hits you, you know, out of the blue and you can just kind of go off and have a little breakdown and get back to it, because there's nothing else to do," said daughter Shannon Gackstetter, part of the cleanup crew along with her husband.

Gackstetter says her dad, Terry, looks tired and her mom, MaryAnn, is spending Mother's Day working too many hour washing flood-soaked clothes.

Meanwhile in town, some also sought a higher power to understand the unusual power of this year's spring river.

"The losses have been great, but God has not failed us and he is not about to fail us, even through this," John Borg said.

In Eagle, being lucky means sorting through dampened food coated with contaminants.

"It's fuel oil and feces, because when the water came up and filled this entire area, it went around and around and couldn't go anywhere," Gackstetter said.

It passed through septic and fuel tanks, and right on through the McMullin's root cellar.

The McMullins say they feel fortunate -- at least they have a home to salvage. A lot of people they know lost absolutely everything. And in this community, the effort to rebuild is enormous.

An account has been set up at Wells Fargo for donations to the recovery effort in Eagle called "Rebuild Eagle."

Contact Jill Burke at jburke@ktuu.com