Avalanche damages Deaf family’s home
Renca Dunn, Daily Moth Reporter: On Thursday, an avalanche happened in Eagle River, Alaska which is 20 minutes from Anchorage and in the mountains. The avalanche was about 60 to 80 feet and affected the residents who lived in the area including one Deaf family.
(Drone Video)
Kyle Hoffer and Hinda Kasher-Hoffer with their son Shiya plus their 5 dogs have lived in Eagle River for about 3 years. When the avalanche happened, it seems that their home was the most affected. We reached out to them for an interview.
(Begin Interview Package)
Renca: Now, that avalanche has affected your home area, where you live. Can you explain what happened?
Kyle Hoffer: Yes, what happened is on Thursday night, before midnight, it was very windy outside with a little rain, but mostly with heavy winds. We knew a big storm was coming. Later, my deaf dog…
Hinda Kasher: Our deaf dog’s name is Kakhola. We have five dogs and all of them are hearing except for one deaf dog.
(Photo of dog Kakhola)
So when we were asleep, Kakhola kept pawing at him and wouldn’t give up.
Kyle: I knew that was a bad sign. So I picked our dog up and tried to comfort Kakhola while sitting on the couch. That was at around 11:30 pm. Then I started feeling soft vibrations. It wasn’t like an earthquake.
Hinda: It was very short.
Kyle: The vibrations continued for two seconds at a time, then the lights turned off, the internet stopped working, and there were lights zooming by outside. I had never seen that before. Then I walked to the window and was shocked at what I saw. The road in front of our home was covered by 40 feet of snow.
(Video of avalanche courtesy of Kyle Hoffer)
When we went into the garage…
Hinda: We were shocked.
Kyle: The front of the garage was bent inward due to the avalanche and broke my car.
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Hinda: There was a drone that stopped at our house.
Kyle: It’s funny, I thought it was a helicopter so I put on my hearing aid to try to listen, but I didn’t hear anything. Oh, that’s a drone!
Hinda: He gestured that we were okay, and the drone went around our house repeatedly.
Kyle: To observe how our house was affected.
Hinda: Then after the sunrise, we could finally see better and we realized that’s what it looked like. We saw people walking by, and it looked like they were checking out what happened with the avalanche… But they were on my property, where the most impact happened. Our house was the house that was most impacted in the area.
Kyle: Two police officers came and one of them who knew sign language came to us.
Hinda: The police officer didn’t just use the alphabet, this officer actually knew how to sign and we were able to communicate clearly. Honestly, that really made us calm.
Kyle: We were able to become more calm from our emotional state.
Hinda: We chatted and the police officer led us. We really, really want to thank the community for their donations, support, check-in messages, and other ways of showing support. We want to thank you, the Deaf community. Thank you.
Kyle: Thank you so much for your support.
Renca: Thanks, Kyle and Hinda, for your time. The avalanche happened on Thursday then this recent Sunday, the mayor issued a mandatory evacuation for all residents. The reason for this is because they sent explosions on the mountain. The avalanche that hit the residents was only half of it as the other half was still stuck on the mountain. So, they went ahead to drop explosions to make the other half of the avalanche move and to finish it off. Based on several articles, they said it would take several weeks to clear out the snow. There is a GoFundMe page for Kyle and Hinda as they need some financial support to cover their losses. We put the link in this transcript and several articles from Anchorage news about this avalanche.
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/drone-captures-alaska-road-buried-14060075