The Mendenhall River and Lake crested at around 3:15 a.m. Tuesday morning at close to 15.99 feet.
According to the National Weather Service office in Juneau, where meteorologists stayed up through the night monitoring the flooding event, the water is receding and the water level in Suicide Basin, which disgorged on Sunday, had decreased by about 332 feet since 7 a.m. Sunday.
When the water is at 15 feet, Killewich Drive is covered by 2 feet of water and Riverside Drive has 1 foot of water covering it in places. One person reported two feet of water in her house, while last year’s event brought no water into her house. Fire crews were using a raft to extract a stranded person on Long Run Drive at about 5 a.m.
By 4:30 a.m., the water level had reduced to 15.8 feet. The river will drop from the major flood stage of 14 feet by 8 a.m., and will drop out of minor flood stage of 9 feet by 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Water builds up behind an ice dam in Suicide Basin on the east side of the Mendenhall Glacier and, like it did last year last year, made a dramatic entrance into the populated valley when the pressure became great enough to succumb to gravity. Last year a few homes along the river were lost in a similar event.
Alaska Electric Light and Power cut power to streets as the water rose throughout the night: At 7:30 p.m., power was cut to View Drive. At 1:05 a.m. power was cut to Killewich and Gee Street. By 2:11 a.m., 2:11 a.m. power to the was cut to rest of Meander Way and to Rivercourt Way.
An emergency shelter opened at Floyd Dryden Middle School on Mendenhall Loop Road, as several streets were under evacuation orders.
One of these days we’re gonna figure out how to be proactive.
It happens around this time every year. Often with some version of the same results.
But this is also the same community who has a landfill right in the middle of it, so…
Maybe if the basin said something derogatory about drag queens…
Let’s do what we do best, people. Help each other out.
We cannot stop the water from coming; we can only regulate it if we choose to do so. The only feasible method would be to blast a channel to daylight out of the rock containing the water body. The goal would be to prevent the water from reaching a height needed to be drained 332ft at once. Continual outflow at a lower level will be a more consistent, lower flow. Of course, this would require drilling and excavation equipment to be transported to the site to accomplish the work.
What about no action? Assume 1000 homes at $500k per home now have a history of flooding. These homes can no longer be sold, mortgaged, or insured for flooding. That is $500-million in collective economic damage to 1000 families. Double it to $1-billion if its 2000 homes, autos, and various other assets.
Conclusion, the environment worshippers need to get over it and allow action on the solution. Note, we spent what, $300-billion, helping Ukraine. We spend $billions every year on diking and revetment along the Mississippi River. Are Juneau taxpayers chopped liver?
Bipartisan the capital to anchorage a child can see this.
God wants you to take an oath to keep on topic.
Stevie Wonder can see that.
Speaking for a decent segment of Juneau, we’d really love for you to come take it. Tomorrow. All we ask is build the road from Skagway on the way in.
It would be worth the loss of jobs to see what people like you would blame when a capital in Seward or Houston gets the same results.
I agree with Wayne. This “disaster” could have been avoided with action in advance. Why didn’t the city/borough blast or dig a channel to allow the melt water to flow rather than accumulate?
Now we know you have never seen a Jökulhlaup.
Yeah, go Google it.
Fast, amazing, devistating.
Location, location, location. Mapped flood zone AE.