Three crisis canine teams arrived in Juneau last week, with dogs that are trained to provide comfort and emotional support to residents after the Aug. 6 flood created varying degrees of disaster for 290 homeowners.
Juneau is already the home to over 9,000 dogs, so what’ three more?
The comfort canines, not to be confused with therapy dogs, will be visiting the flood-impacted neighborhoods in the Mendenhall Valley, going to schools, disaster assistance centers, and any shelters that remain open. The dogs will be in town until Aug. 21.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Forest Service wrote an “acknowledgement” of the event, which occurred out of a well-known hazard that could have been mitigated over the past years, rather than allowed to continue to seasonally create flooding. Suicide Basin is a geologic feature where water and ice get backed up in a large pond, and then releases in a gush when the pressure is great enough. The local, state, and federal governments have taken no action to prevent this disaster, although they have had years to do so.
All the areas that were closed in the Mendenhall Glacier area that are under the Forest Service’s jurisdiction are are now reopened, and campers, tourists, and locals are returning to the places that were recently underwater. Nearby, homeowners are tearing out sheetrock and insulation in a race against time as fall approaches.
The Forest Service is also focused on “supporting emotional and mental well-being of our employees and has organized a team ‘check-in’ that will include a mental health counselor for those team members who feel they would benefit from information about stress, trauma and grief,” the regional forester said in a statement.
