As heavy snowfall began to coat Turnagain Pass last week, notifications started lighting up Tim Glassett’s cellphone around 10 p.m. Instead of text messages, each ping warned of avalanche activity detected on a mountain slope above the Seward Highway.
As the statewide avalanche and artillery program manager for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, Glassett’s job is to prevent snow from sliding to the valley bottom and blocking the highway. In the past, one of the only ways to collect this kind of information was through direct observation, which for Glassett often required driving in poor road conditions midstorm.
Now, a new series of sensors — paid for by a federal grant program to help DOT modernize avalanche monitoring and mitigation systems in Alaska — casts information straight to Glassett’s iPhone. While infrasound has been used for decades to detect earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, crews are now training it on what avalanches sound like…