H.U.D COMES TO PORT GRAHAM

As told by Angelina to Bob Vorhies

On march 5, 1982, I interviewed Mr. Robert Vorhies regarding the housing and Urban Development project in Port Graham.

Mr. Vorhies is the job superintendent for the R. S. Bowers Constructing Company of Anchorage, Alaska, which was awarded the contract for the federally funded program.

Six men from Utah have been brought in by the company as key men, supervisors, foremen, journeymen and carpenters which were not available in the village. Fifteen local people are also working on the program.

“Two mouths prior to come to Port Graham, we started gathering the material in Seattle to bring in on a barge. When it arrived here we unloaded it from the barge with a helicopter,” commented Mr. Vorhies.

The helicopter is owned by Alaska Helicopter company In Anchorage and is rented at a cost of $3,000 per hour.

The helicopter unloaded every two and a half minutes from the barge which was the size of a football filed. The barge is owned by Bower Barge Company of Seattle.

The houses will not all be the same size. The two bedrooms homes are eight hundred ten square feet, three bedrooms homes are nine hundred seventy- two square feet and four bedrooms are one thousand eighty square feet.

“The building are not prefabricated, they are stick building,” continued Mr. Vorhies. “They are put up piece by piece from materials brought into the project.”

There are eight inches of insulation in the walls and twelve inches in both the ceiling and floor.

The roof is of galvanized steel.

Windows are tripled paned, insulated glass with wooden casing and aluminum working part.

The floors, panting, electrical and pluming work will be subcontracted.

Home owners will get to select the colors they want from three choices for exterior, interior and floor vinyl.

Furniture will not come with the homes, but buyers will get a wood stove, oil stove, electrical or propane range and a refrigerator.

The builders have a 365 day contract to complete the project. By September some families in Port Graham should be living in new homes.

In addition to Port Graham’s thirty one homes, the company is also constructing homes in English Bay and Tatitlek as part of the entire project sponsored by North Pacific Rim.

A partial list of homeowners.

1. Ephim & Vera Moonin

2. Melvin & Linda Malchoff

3. Charles Kaze & Juanita Moonin

4. Walter Meganack