Juneau flood inundates at least 100 homes, triggers state response

Mendenhall Glacier’s outburst flood is an annual event after climate change opened a water-collecting basin on the ice field in 2011

Forty-three people spent the night in Juneau’s emergency shelter at Floyd Dryden Middle School on Monday night as a record-high flood from the Mendenhall Glacier inundated homes.

Deputy City Manager Robert Barr said the total number of people who evacuated their homes is likely several times that; shelters are usually a last resort for people who cannot stay with family, friends or in a hotel.

“You can imagine how hard it would be to wake up with water in your house, not expecting there to be water in your house,” he said.

The Juneau Assembly declared a local disaster emergency and requested state and federal assistance in an emergency meeting at noon Tuesday. Gov. Mike Dunleavy declared the flood a state emergency on Tuesday morning, and a federal disaster request is expected soon.

At the emergency meeting, City Manager Katie Koester said many residents who did not think their homes were in harm’s way ended up evacuating in the middle of the night.

“Residents were just kind of anticipating that they wouldn’t be impacted, and then had to leave in a big hurry to come to the shelter. Many of them were wet,” she said.

The flood was a foot higher than last year’s record-breaker that sent buildings tumbling into the Mendenhall River.

Koester said the city is still assessing the damage, but at least 100 vehicles were flooded. Power was back on in the Mendenhall Valley by Tuesday afternoon.

Barr said no one was killed or injured.

“No shortage of trauma, I think, exists for many people. Lots of displacement happened, lots of property damage, lots and lots of work ahead of us,” he said.

The damage is more extensive this year than in last year’s flood, officials said. They anticipate the need for short- and long-term shelter, financial support for individuals and businesses, and support for private and public damage.

Eran Hood, an environmental science professor at University of Alaska Southeast in Juneau, studies the glacier. He said many factors determine the volume of the flood, which has only been happening since climate warming caused ice to recede and open up a basin in 2011. But he said events like this operate on decadal time scales, so scientists and the city need to work together in the coming years to understand what changes on the icefield mean for flooding in the valley below.

“There’s a very reasonable chance that the magnitude of floods can increase in the future. However, it depends how these different competing factors play out,” Hood said, referring to the ways the glacier and remnant ice could evolve in the future.

The city will send people to inspect damaged homes and is working on a solution for trash and debris. Mayor Beth Weldon said city employees are on site with pumps to help people with flooded basements and crawl spaces.

“Public works has been all over the place,” she said.

Now, local officials are working with the state’s emergency response to get as much relief for Juneau residents as possible.

“It won’t be a full and total solution. Those programs aren’t designed — they’re not funded at a level and they’re not designed at a level to be able to fully make people whole, but they will be a step in the right direction,” Barr said.

State, tribal and federal response

Dunleavy’s disaster declaration makes funding through the state’s disaster public and individual assistance disaster recovery programs available. The public assistance program reimburses communities for emergency response costs, such as damaged critical infrastructure. Individual assistance comes in the form of grants for families whose primary residences or transportation are damaged, as well as disaster-related medical and other expenses.

“I am grateful no one has been injured or killed by this morning’s outburst flood. Emergency responders and managers have done an outstanding job keeping their residents safe,” Dunleavy said in a statement.

“In addition to the Disaster Declaration, I have directed all state agencies to support the community as they deal with this major flooding,” he said.

The State Emergency Operations Center sent a supervisor and an operations specialist to Juneau to coordinate the state disaster response and support Juneau officials’ response.

The state’s Department of Conservation Division of Spill Prevention and Response is ready to respond to any spills. Rachael Krajewski, the on-scene coordinator for the division, flew over the Mendenhall Valley on Tuesday to check for indicators of potentially hazardous spills in the water.

“I didn’t see any sheens, any petroleum sheens, nothing that looked like that,” she said. Krajewski said she and her staff on the ground in Juneau are looking for overturned home heating oil tanks and other obvious spill sources. Residents who see spills or leaking boats or vehicles can report them to DEC.

Department of Public Safety spokesperson Austin McDaniel said the agency is working closely with the response, but has not yet received a request for assistance from city officials.

Danielle Tessen, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, said no state roads have been damaged by the flood, and that as a precaution, inspectors were examining the two road bridges and one pedestrian bridge that cross the Mendenhall River. All three bridges remained open to traffic.

Starting Tuesday afternoon, DOT began flying a drone over flood-affected areas in order to identify clogged drains and other areas needing attention, Tessen said, and state road crews were prepared to help city workers as needed.

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indian Tribes of Alaska opened its emergency shelter at Elizabeth Peratrovich Hall in downtown Juneau. President Richard Chalyee Éesh Petersen and Jackie Pata, who leads the Tlingit-Haida Regional Housing Authority, toured the flooded area Tuesday morning.

“I want our citizens to know the Tribe is ready to respond to the devastating flooding,” said Peterson in a statement.

The Tribe estimates that as many as 500 tribal citizens could be affected by the flooding, according to a news release.

Pata contacted the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Tuesday morning to alert federal officials of the pending emergency funding request, the release said.

U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola’s office said the Alaska congressional delegation is working together and has been in contact with FEMA. Juneau Mayor Weldon said Dunleavy is scheduled to be in Juneau on Wednesday, as is U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski; Peltola is scheduled to arrive this weekend.