Floodwaters from Juneau’s glacial outburst are receding. The flood reached a record-breaking crest of 16.65 feet at about 8 a.m. Wednesday.
The temporary levee the city installed along the Mendenhall River this year protected hundreds of homes nearby. But water still leaked through some sections and flooded several streets.
In the middle of Meander Way, Sean Smack tugged a raft through muddy floodwaters. He ferried diesel jugs to neighbors so they could run generators to pump the water from their homes since power was cut Wednesday morning as the river level rose.
“The Meander Way water taxi service — once a year, have no fear,” he said.
He delivered a jug to Locke and Melissa Brown’s house. Water from their crawl space flowed through a bright green garden hose down their porch steps.
The Browns have HESCO barriers stacked up in their backyard. But water worked its way through the barriers and rose through storm drains, hitting a handful of homes at the end of Meander Way.
The Browns were glad that the barriers are there, even with the seepage. This is the third year in a row their home has flooded.
“If they weren’t here, it would have been catastrophic for us,” Locke Brown said.
It’s not as bad this time. But he says they want a long-term solution before they have to sell their home in a few years. Melissa is on active duty in the U.S. Coast Guard.
“We’re going to be doing this for five years in total, and then we’re forced to move on military orders,” he said. “How are we going to sell our house?”
Around the corner, Andrew Hills walked along the grey pool in the middle of Northland Street with his toddler, Waylon, up on his shoulders. Their house got hit by the flood last year, but this year it was spared.
“This is awesome. I could not be happier,” Hills said. “I feel terrible for the people at the end of Meander, but, you know, really happy it didn’t hit us.”
He said he spent the night walking the streets and saw the barriers leaking.
At a press briefing Wednesday morning, Juneau City Manager Katie Koester said the barriers were largely a success.
“I know we’re not entirely out of the woods, but the HESCO barriers really have protected our community,” Koester said. “If it weren’t for them, we would have hundreds and hundreds of flooded homes.”
Building the levee was a controversial process, and it is considered a stop-gap solution. It’s only meant to work for around a decade, and the city doesn’t know how it would perform in floods higher than 18 feet. Experts still don’t know whether that could happen. This year’s record-breaking crest was more than half a foot higher than last year’s peak of 15.99 feet, which was also a foot higher than the previous year.
City officials are still assessing the damage and monitoring areas that saw some flooding, including parts of Meander Way, Meadow Lane, Marion Drive, Parkview Court, Center Court, View Drive, Long Run Drive, Betty Court, Gee Street and the Safeway parking lot.
Christopher Goins with the Alaska Department of Transportation said Back Loop Bridge was damaged by tree strikes and erosion. The bridge was closed to traffic Tuesday night.
“We are beginning to lose portions of the road associated with that abutment there, and that’s the main support where we have piles that go into the ground that hold up the bridge sections themselves,” he said Wednesday morning, adding that the bridge should be fine with some repairs.
The current swept away tons of trees from the riverbank, including one that crushed a HESCO barrier. The city reinforced it with massive sandbags called supersacks.
Nicole Ferrin, the warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Juneau, noted the significance of this flood.
“This is a new all-time record-high crest for the Mendenhall Lake and river system,” Ferrin said.
The crest happened sooner than initially predicted. On Tuesday evening, the National Weather Service updated the forecast from an expected peak Wednesday afternoon to earlier that morning. Aaron Jacobs, senior service hydrologist at the agency, said that’s because rainfall from the prior few days masked when Suicide Basin started to release.
“It really hides the signal that we would be looking for if water was coming from Suicide Basin,” he said.
Jacobs said it now looks like the release began sometime on Monday morning.
Just outside the city’s emergency shelter on Floyd Dryden campus, Shari Weimer smoked a cigarette as sunshine broke through the fog. She and her husband Carl evacuated from Lakeview Court at around 10 p.m. Wednesday night.
“I’m right one street over from the river, and I just chose to evacuate because my life is worth more than home,” she said.
Their house flooded the past two years. This time, with a higher peak and concerns about the temporary levee, Shari said she didn’t want to deal with the panic again.
Just seven people stayed in the shelter overnight. Some residents stayed with friends and family in town, and others stayed home. Capital City Fire/Rescue Assistant Chief Sam Russell said during a Wednesday’s press conference that emergency responders did not need to make any rescues overnight as waters levels rose.
Emergency officials say people should keep out of the flooded area as water recedes. The Juneau School District postponed the first day of school on Thursday until Friday in order to allow the area time to dry out.
The next notice people can expect is an ‘all clear’ alert when it’s safe for people to return home.
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