State transportation officials are taking steps to monitor avalanche zones affecting a road in Juneau.

The Juneau Empire reports the Alaska Department of Transportation has begun installing avalanche cameras that will monitor traffic south of downtown Juneau on the road that leads to Thane.

Regional maintenance superintendent Greg Patz says video will be reviewed after avalanches to determine whether cars or pedestrians entered the avalanche zone and didn't come out.

Southeast Region director Al Clough said says cameras will be ready to operate this winter. Equipment and installation will cost $650,000.

Clough says the agency next year will install gates on Thane Road to stop traffic during periods of avalanche danger. The gates will operate like railroad crossing barriers.

Construction of a new $180 million Tanana River bridge at Salcha is limiting traffic on the river.

The Alaska Railroad says boats will not be allowed under the bridge until next year.

The decision affects hunters trying to reach moose-hunting camps.

Project director Mark Peterburs tells the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that the railroad is building a temporary trestle across the river that will be used to construct the permanent bridge.

He says it's unsafe for boats to cross under the temporary bridge because it's only three to four feet above the water.

He says railroad officials are checking possible alternative routes around the bridge.

The bridge is being built to give the Army access to training land south of the river and should be completed next year.

A lawsuit filed by former police officers five years ago against the Fairbanks Police Department has been dismissed by a federal court judge.

Former officers Al Hutton and Doug Whorton sued in 2008, claiming they were unfairly disciplined for meeting with the city mayor to report complaints about the department.

A jury deliberating in April could not reach a verdict in the case.

The Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reports U.S. District Court Judge Ralph Beistline on Monday dismissed the lawsuit.

Beistline wrote that no reasonable juror from trial testimony would conclude that Whorton and Hutton met with the mayor as private citizens.

He says in the decision that Hutton and Whorton were disgruntled employees who sought the ouster of the police chief and deputy chief.

A first-class passenger on a flight from New York to Shanghai faces a federal charge after authorities say she consumed five glasses of wine and climbed on seats and yelled profanities, forcing the flight to be diverted to Anchorage.

The Anchorage Daily News reports Stephanie Heizmann Auerbach is accused of disrupting a flight and is being held at women's jail. Her Anchorage-based attorney didn't immediately return a message Wednesday morning.

According to court documents, Auerbach acted out on a Delta Airlines flight Sunday from New York to Shanghai via Detroit. Within an hour and a half of the flight leaving Detroit, the pilot diverted the plane to Anchorage.

Airport police say she was combative before being arrested.

A 34-year-old Kenai Peninsula man suspected of seriously assaulting a woman in June has been arraigned in Kenai Superior Court.

Joshua Saunders of Nikiski is charged with attempted murder and felony assault. He's being held at Wildwood Pretrial Facility with bail set at $100,000.

He is represented by public defender Hatton Greer, who entered not guilty pleas Monday.

The Peninsula Clarion reports Alaska State Troopers on June 27 took a 911 call from Saunders' girlfriend. She told troopers Saunders had choked and punched her and at one point grabbed her tongue and tried to pull it out. Her clothes were bloody and troopers say her injuries were consistent with her account.

Troopers found Saunders in a wooded area. He was armed with a knife and had cut himself.

The Tetlin Junction Ridge fire continues its three-month-long burn, eliciting what is being described as "extreme" in nature behavior made more apparent in recent footage captured from onboard an Alaska Division of Forestry air tactical supervisor camera.

On Aug. 16 at approximately 7:00 p.m., the ADF aerial supervision module crewed by Tim Whitesell and Doug Burts reported what ADF officials define as a "fire vortex," or a "firenado." The wild land fire footage was captured near the southeast perimeter of the Tetlin Junction Ridge, burning east of Tok and Tetlin junctions, just north of the Alaska Highway.

According to firefighters who witnessed the three-quarter-mile-wide vortex, the phenomenon lasted for about an hour, uprooting trees and lifting them high into the air. The debris was lifted so high, in fact, crews aboard the aircraft were able to capture some of it from inside the vehicle.

The vortex isn't necessarily uncommon, but remarkable enough in and of itself for Whitesell to write "a picture probably is worth a thousand words, but there are indeed times when a picture just doesn't do it (the trees being uprooted and blow around) justice."

Since the video was captured the fire has managed to burn through about 6,000 additional acres, according to ADF officials.

The fire was started during a thunderstorm when lightning struck ground on May 26, ADF officials noted.

No firefighters were on the ground near the fire at the time of the vortex, but ADF officials note engines and crews were in place along the Alaska Highway approximately 2 miles south of the fire.

Current information about Alaska Division of Forestry fires is available atTwitter

Updated 5:42 p.m. 8/21/2013

The Anchorage Police Department has released a description of the suspect: A white male, apparently in his 20s and approximately 5 feet 10 inches tall and 220 pounds.

The suspect is described as clean shaven, wearing a red hoodie, white shorts and a white baseball cap.

Anyone with relevant information is asked to call police at 786-8900 or to report a tip anonymously call CrimeStoppers at 561-STOP.

Shortly before 5 p.m., all lanes of traffic on Dowling re-opened.

Updated 4:40 p.m. 8/21/2013

Taku Elementary School officials are releasing students to their parents, while Anchorage police officers continue to search nearby for a suspect who opened fire on an officer Wednesday afternoon.

ASD spokeswoman Heidi Embley said there were no more than five students remaining on campus as of 4:36 p.m.

APD officials have called back their SWAT and K-9 units while Alaska State Troopers officials have called back the Helo-2 helicopter.

The suspect remains at large as APD officers continue to canvass the area.

Updated 3:10 p.m. 8/21/2013

APD officers were shot at an estimated three or times. They did not return fire.

Anchorage Police officers are now canvassing the area with K-9 teams and checking door to door for the suspect, along the way clearing residents to a safe distance.

Around 2:45 p.m. APD officers began clearing a Dowling Road three-story home with more than a dozen cars surrounding the area and an Alaska State Troopers helicopter buzzing overhead.

Officers have blocked traffic for a stretch of Dowling between Old Seward and C Street.

Taku Elementary remains on stay put-mode, according to ASD spokeswoman Heidi Embley.

Original story:

Anchorage police are chasing a suspect in a shooting investigation that started in the South Anchorage area Wednesday afternoon, which put five schools in stay-put mode on the first day of classes. One school is still using heightened security.

According to the Anchorage Police Department's Twitter, police are searching for a "white male who fired several shots at an officer in a parking lot near the 200 block of (East Dowling Road)."

In a statement from APD spokeswoman Jennifer Castro, police received an initial call from the officer who had been fired on shortly after he saw the man, just before 12:40 p.m.

"The officer got out of his patrol car and approached the male," Castro wrote. "As the male started walking away from the officer, he turned and fired multiple shots at the officer and fled on foot. The officer was not hit."

The Anchorage School District's Twitter feed says the Polaris, SAVE, Taku, Rilke Schule and Northern Lights ABC schools had said stay-put mode during the chase, taking place along Dowling. A few minutes later, ASD said Taku Elementary was the only school still in stay-put mode.

Castro says several areas along Dowling, including the stretch from A Street to the Old Seward Highway, have been closed by police during the pursuit, with people asked to avoid the Dowling Road area. SWAT team members and K-9 units, as well as Alaska State Troopers' Helo-2, are assisting with the search.

Channel 2's Clinton Bennett, Austin Baird, Joshua Staab, Garrett Turner and Rick Schleyer contributed information to this story.

This is a developing story. Please check KTUU.com and the Channel 2 newscasts for updates.

Contact Chris Klint

A man described by residents and police in an Aleutian Islands town as a known drug dealer was turned around at the local airport and run out of town by parents when he arrived from Anchorage Tuesday.

Locals in the East Aleutians Borough community of Sand Point say the incident occurred at about 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, when a nightly PenAir flight arrived in town from Anchorage with the man on board.

In a caption for a Facebook photo of the confrontation posted by resident Carmen Dushkin, she said the incident personifies opposition by locals to a continuing flow of drugs into their communities.

"Sand Point takes a stand to remove known drug dealers," Dushkin wrote. "Team Sand Point will not let you come into our town and corrupt the youth of tomorrow."

The Sand Point incident follows a tradition dating back to Alaska Native tribes of banishing offenders who disturb the peace as a form of punishment, one adopted by Gold Rush-era residents as a "blue ticket" out of town by the first available means of transportation. In a more recent example of an Alaska community expelling a person suspected of but not charged with a crime, tribal officials banned a suspected bootlegger from the village of Akiak in April.

According to Sand Point Police Department officer Michael Livingston, who witnessed the exchange, police couldn't confirm locals' identification of the man as he was not charged with a crime. The man does have a history in the 1,000-person community, which has seen problems with illegal drugs like cocaine, heroin and meth, as well as abuse of prescription drugs.

"Typically, what happens is a drug dealer flies into Sand Point with, say, 1,000 Percocet (oxycodone pain pills) and he has a runner sell them for 150 bucks apiece," Livingston said. "And within a couple weeks, he's leaving town with about $150,000 cash."

Livingston was at the airport to transfer a suspect in an unrelated case onto the PenAir flight to Anchorage. While he was present as a police officer, he says his primary role was to keep the peace and maintain order.

Dushkin was also at the airport to pick up her brother-in-law Tuesday night, when she heard that a group of people were planning to confront the man upon his arrival from the 560-mile flight. She arrived in time to record the incident.

"As soon as he walked into the terminal, they confronted him," Dushkin said. "They walked him straight to the counter, and the townspeople bought his ticket right back, so he wasn't even able to step out of the airport terminal."

Dushkin says locals have seen the man fly into Sand Point for at least the past three or four years, during which he is believed to have distributed drugs, including prescription pills and meth. The group of people who met the man apparently didn't have any clear organization, beyond their shared purpose.

"One of them I stopped, I asked, 'Are you a leader?'" Dushkin said. "And he was like, 'No, we're all leaders; this is like Sand Point people,' so I just said Team Sand Point (on Facebook)."

The broad-based support for confronting the man mirrors what Livingston calls widespread anger among locals at an endless tide of narcotics supplied by visitors.

"The parents of Sand Point are just sick and tired of these drug dealers coming into town, because the drug dealers don't care who they sell the drugs to -- they don't care whether or not they sell them to kids," Livingston said.

When the man entered the terminal, Livingston says he promptly found himself face-to-face with about 10 angry parents.

"Well, I've seen this man get off the plane before and go to various houses in Sand Point, and my impression of him is that he's kind of a shy reserved guy," Livingston said. "When he got off the plane and there was a semicircle of angry people, he seemed to be quite shocked by it and found it a pretty unpleasant situation to be in; I think he was relieved to be able to get back on the plane."

According to Livingston, the man's departure from the airport was met by loud approval as onlookers saw him board the return flight to Anchorage.

"I haven't ever seen anyone marched out of town like this guy was; it was the first time I've seen it," Livingston said. "From the round of applause that the citizens gave, I think that it has been unprecedented in Sand Point, and the citizens were very happy with their results -- they didn't want this alleged drug dealer to be in town peddling drugs to their kids."

Editor's note: The identity of the man who was confronted in Sand Point has been omitted from this story because he was not charged with a crime.

Contact Chris Klint

Officials say the Mat-Su Borough increases in population by about 400 people per year, one of the fastest growing areas in the United States. Plans are now in the works for new schools off Knik Goose Bay Road, along with a new fire station near Trunk Road.

The Borough Assembly approved $9.2 million for construction of the facility, which will replace Fire Station 51, which is nestled between Palmer and Wasilla. Spokesperson Patty Sullivan says the old station can't accommodate the fire department's new ladder truck.

"It's a matter of growth, as well as updating and enlarging and making parts of that facility a new use, and a supply warehouse," said Sullivan.

The new firehouse will also house an EMS crew, with the hope of improving response times in the southern end of Wasilla. Requests for proposals on designs are being drafted. Chief James Steele said the building will be finished sometime in 2015.

Growth in the school district is also another area the borough is tackling.

"We gain about 50 to 80 students a year, so that's two classrooms, so we have 11 portables right now," said Wasilla High School principal Amy Spargo. "We're just growing."

The school has 1,275 students this year, but is only meant to accommodate 850. A new secondary school planned for the Knik Goose Bay area is expected to ease the burden.

"Some of the kids out in KGB travel almost 90 minutes by bus, so for the students who have to travel more than 90 minutes, it's nice to have a school closer to home," said Spargos.

According to the borough's annual report the middle/high school is estimated to cost $65 million and construction is slated to start next summer. A $26 million elementary school for the area is also in the planning stages.

Sullivan said the school projects are paid for in part by a $215 million bond approved by voters two years ago.

Contact Adam Pinsker

Vehicles and bicycles share the roads here in anchorage but they don't always get along.

Fortunately for all involved, the number of collisions appears to be coasting downward.  The Anchorage Police Department keeps track of the number of vehicle and bicycle accidents and so far this year, the department has seen a big improvement over last.

From March through June of 2012 there were 65 documented collisions, according to APD. This year there have been just 25 during the same period.

Bike injuries as a whole are trending downward, according to statistics provided by The Alaska Injury and Prevention Center. Despite the statistics, there are plenty of people with their own tails of being hit.

At a local bike shop in town, one sales associate said he's been hit three times.

"Cars like to get really close, a lot closer than they should be," said Derek Herre with the local Trek Bicycle Store. "You know the law is three feet, so if I can reach out and touch a car, I'm too close to a car."

Anchorage police say new bike lanes and better motorist and cyclist education is helping to decrease collisions but there's still room for improvement.

"Typically the automobile drivers, a lot of them think that bicycles aren't allowed on the streets and they resent it, and they express that resentment by doing a variety of really dangerous things to cyclists who are on the street," said Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew.

In addition to staying visible as the summer light wanes, it's recommended that cyclists make eye contact before crossing in front of cars, according to Alaska Injury and Prevention Center officials. Also the center notes avoiding crossing lanes or going on and off sidewalks can go a long way toward keeping you safe.

Two crew members were rescued Wednesday night when their fishing boat sank near the mouth of the Kenai River.

People at the Beluga Lookout Lodge saw a fishing boat suddenly overturn in heavy swells.

They called 911 and rescue boats from the Kenai and Nikiski Fire Departments, along with private skiffs, rushed to the scene.

Eric Wilcox, the fire marshal with the Kenai Fire Department, says two crewmen from the fishing vessel Six were rescued. They were taken to Central Peninsula Hospital, but Wilcox says the two men were able to walk up the beach after rescue boats brought them to shore.

In an email to Channel 2, one of the rescued crewmen, Allan Baldwin, says wave action capsized the vessel.

"(W)e took water over the bow and the following sea pushed the boat in and over to lay on its side," Baldwin wrote. "The skipper climbed down into the filling house and was able to exit the door which I had already exited, it was all I could do to hold open the door while he pulled himself against the pressure of the waves!"

As the boat abruptly overturned, Baldwin says his sense of both time and space aboard were affected.

"We never got too excited, just knew we needed to get to the driest spot," Baldwin wrote. "As the boat turned over it seemed like slow motion yet took seconds, I was disorientated for a second because I was standing on the wall instead of the floor and water filling a boat is a bad feeling!"

Baldwin credits local emergency services for their quick response to the sinking, despite a moment when it wasn't clear whether they had been contacted.

"I placed a call to 911 but lost my footing and dunked my phone," Baldwin wrote. "I knew a call made it when through the fog I saw red lights on the bluff, then again on the beach? We have great fire rescue people in Kenai and thankfully (those) people watch the river mouth all the time."

Officials are say they are aware of the sinking, and they are asking people to not call 911 to report the boat, which is partially submerged south of the mouth of the river near Chinulna Point.

Channel 2's Chris Klint contributed information to this story.

Contact Mike Ross

Alaska State Troopers arrested a man sought on a warrant Wednesday evening after a five-hour standoff, which ended with the use of gas to force the man from a Soldotna home.

According to AST spokesperson Megan Peters, 43-year-old James Michael Cook had been sought by troopers on a warrant for several charges, including two counts of first-degree assault as well as one count of third-degree assault, kidnapping, tampering with physical evidence and improper use of a title.

"He was considered high-risk, so (troopers) went out looking for him and they ultimately found him," Peters said.

When Cook was located at a residence on Jones Road, troopers with AST's Special Emergency Reaction Team attempted to serve the warrant at about 4 p.m. Wednesday, but he fired a single shot at a tactical response vehicle.

Troopers didn't return fire, subsequently surrounding the home and trying to negotiate with Cook. They eventually took him into custody at about 9 p.m., after launching devices containing OC gas -- similar to pepper spray -- into the home.

"We fired chemical munitions and we flushed him out," Peters said. "He threw his gun out, and then he came out too."

Peters says nobody was injured during the standoff, which temporarily closed Jones Road in the area. Troopers had told nearby residents to stay in their homes during the incident.

Channel 2's Joshua Staab, Austin Baird, Corey Allen-Young and Sarah Evans contributed to this report.

Contact Chris Klint

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's new administrator is scheduled to be in Alaska next week.

EPA says Gina McCarthy plans to visit the Bristol Bay region and meet with tribes, fishermen and others. EPA is studying the impacts of large-scale mining in what is home to a world-premier sockeye salmon fishery. The results of that study -- expected to be finalized later this year -- could impact permitting decisions for the proposed Pebble Mine.

The EPA says McCarthy also will highlight President Barack Obama's "commitment to fight climate change and its impact on the state" and visit Fairbanks, to discuss air quality issues in the community.

Construction is progressing on a planned movie theater and superstore complex in Bethel.

The building going up is huge by Bethel standards, covering 60,000 square feet.

The structure is on track to open in July 2014.

KYUK says the project is a joint venture between Omni, which owns Swanson's stores, and the Bethel Native Corp., which will operate the movie theater. Omni will operate the store.

The store will take up 50,000 square feet. There will be two movie screens, one seating 150 people and the other seating 75.

Two companies that want to provide Fairbanks with liquefied natural gas by truck have been deemed qualified to build short North Slope pipelines.

The Alaska Department of Natural Resources is proposing to grant rights of way for North Slope pipelines to both Spectrum Alaska and Polar LNG.

The companies were determined to be fit to operate a pipeline to their proposed liquefied natural gas processing facilities.

A pipeline and a processing facility would be part of a system for each to deliver liquefied natural gas to interior Alaska by truck.

The Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority is considering bids from the two companies plus Golden Valley Electric Association and the municipal Interior Gas Utility to become partners in a liquefied natural gas processing facility on the North Slope.

Alaska's health commissioner is looking at whether Arkansas has a health care solution that might work here.

Arkansas wants to use Medicaid expansion money under the federal health care law to enroll people in private plans on its health insurance exchange. Instead of enrolling low-income, uninsured people in Medicaid, Arkansas would buy them insurance plans on that state's health insurance exchange.

Bill Streur, commissioner of the state Department of Health and Social Services, tells APRN that makes sense.

Streur hasn't spoken with Gov. Sean Parnell about the idea. Parnell has resisted expanding Medicaid under the health care law but has said his next decision point would come when he submits his budget in December.

Streur says Arkansas' plan addresses Parnell's concern that expansion would leave Alaska vulnerable to paying huge sums for the Medicaid program.

Alaska State Troopers say a woman died on the Richardson Highway near Tonsina Wednesday night, after her car was badly damaged in a collision with a moose and left the road.

According to a Thursday AST dispatch, troopers responded just after 7:30 p.m. to Mile 75.5 of the highway, where they found a blue 2006 Acura in trees off the road.

"The entire top of the vehicle had been ripped off by the impact with the moose," troopers wrote. "The lone white female occupant of the vehicle had severe head trauma and no signs of life."

Troopers used an automatic emergency defibrillator in an attempt to resuscitate the woman -- whose name is being withheld pending notification of next of kin -- but she was pronounced dead at the scene.

In an email to Channel 2, AST spokesperson Megan Peters says the woman apparently "never saw the cow moose coming" while she was driving on a straight stretch of the highway.

"She struck the moose, went off the roadway, into the west side ditch, hit a pretty big hump in the ditch and went airborne for approximately 30 feet where the vehicle came to rest approximately 60 feet to 70 feet off the roadway on flat surface," Peters wrote.

Bureau of Highway Patrol troopers subsequently responded to investigate the crash. The woman's body was taken to the Crossroads Medical Clinic in Glennallen, and will eventually undergo an autopsy at the state medical examiner's office.

Contact Chris Klint

Rep. Les Gara, who had left the door open to running for governor next year, says he'll seek re-election instead.

The Anchorage Democrat last month said he hadn't ruled out a run for governor if important conditions were met. Those included seriously discussing the possibility with his wife and whether the party fielded a "really good candidate."

Since then, Sen. Hollis French has announced he's exploring a run. French lost the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 2010 to Ethan Berkowitz, who lost to Republican Gov. Sean Parnell.

Sen. Bill Wielechowski has been mentioned both as a possible gubernatorial candidate or running mate to Republican Bill Walker, who plans to run for governor as an independent.

Gara has said he'd rather help French or Wielechowski in a gubernatorial bid this time around.

The Coast Guard is searching for two hunters overdue from a trip to an island near Kenai, which they had visited by skiff earlier this week.

In a Thursday statement, the Coast Guard says the hunters left Kenai for Kalgin Island in a 21-foot skiff Tuesday and were expected back Wednesday night. Family members reported them overdue Thursday morning.

Coast Guard spokesperson Petty Officer 1st Class Sara Mooers says it's not clear whether the hunters had communications gear or any kind of emergency locators, but that they were prepared for their trip.

"We received the report that they had taken equipment to stay overnight," Mooers said.

A Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter has been sent to the area to look for the hunters.

"Our primary concern is locating the missing individuals," Steve Garcia, a search and rescue controller with the Sector Anchorage command center, said in the Coast Guard statement. "We request that anyone with information that may assist searchers to locate these hunters contact the Sector Anchorage command center at 907-271-6769."

According to Mooers, search efforts are focusing on the route the hunters planned to take from Kalgin Island to Kenai and back.

The Coast Guard says weather reports list winds in the search area from 12 to 23 mph, with seas from 2 to 4 feet. Skies are overcast, with visibility at about 3 miles.

Contact Chris Klint

Updated Aug. 22, 2013 at 2:30 p.m.

Anchorage police on Thursday arrested 31-year James John Nick, who is suspected of firing multiple shots a day earlier at an officer on routine patrol on Dowling Road.

Nick initially evaded a large police search that included K-9 units, Special Weapons and Tactics teams and the Alaska State Troopers' Helo-2 helicopter. He ran out of luck on Thursday, said APD spokeswoman Jennifer Castro. 

Police tracked a stolen green Ford Explorer to a Mountain View apartment building, and the SUV was in Nick's possession.

Nearby residents described hearing a loud bang followed by gunshots, but what they heard, according to Castro, was actually a series of less-lethal weapons being used.

A flash-bang grenade that produces a flash of light and burst of sound was tossed near the SUV, 40mm rounds containing tear gas were fired his direction, a 40mm foam baton round was fired after he jumped out and tried to run, and K-9 units were deployed. A taser was also used.

A resident named Tommy, who declined to provide his last name, said he stepped outside when the noise started to see what was going on.

"The dude was trying to get away, and when doing so, they let the dogs go," he said. "The dog nailed his ass.

"Everything was such a reaction that they had to do it really quick."

Not every intense situation involving police and people accused of crimes ends so well.

There have been three fatal officer-involved shootings already this year in Anchorage: Carl Richard Bowie on Feb. 19, Detlef Wulf on April 5 and Kenneth John on June 24.

Nick was thought to be armed and dangerous, enough so that a day earlier five nearby schools were in stay-put mode on what was the first day of school.

With emotions running high, Police Chief Mark Mew said the end result was mostly positive: no one seriously hurt, and no one was killed.

"It was almost was deadly yesterday," Mew said. "We walked right into it without knowing it. We knew about it today.

"Just because we're angry about yesterday, we still have to play it straight. We have to start from the beginning and use the minimum force required"

Castro said Nick was charged initially with First Degree Attempted Murder and Misconduct Involving a Weapon, both felonies.

Charges related to his arrest are pending.

Contact Chris Klint