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.
