Flood preparation event offers resources, community support

Mendenhall Valley residents filled the Mendenhall Valley Public Library meeting room to voice concerns and ask questions at a Flood Preparedness Workshop on Saturday.

The event was hosted by the Juneau Lions Club, a local branch of the global nonprofit service organization, and featured multiple “stations” where attendees could ask specific questions about flood preparation.

Lions Club volunteer Rhonda Ward handed out NOAA Weather Alert Radios to registered attendees. The radios are tuned to the NOAA weather band and automatically turn on when an emergency alert goes out. Ward recommended keeping the radio in a room where it can be heard at night.

Sam Hatch, another Lions Club volunteer, opened the event with a presentation highlighting the juneauflood.com website. He clicked through historical data and then flood water depths at different lake levels, with and without the HESCO barriers.

“There’s that calculus that allows you to make a better decision about your particular situation,” Hatch said.

Lions Club volunteer Elizabeth Figus was running another presentation booth. She told participants to pay close attention to the water levels on the road near their house.

As lake levels rose higher and higher on the screen, murmurs ran through the crowd about the effectiveness of deploying sandbags. Multiple participants had come from or were headed to the CBJ/Tlingit and Haida free sandbag event also held Saturday in Dimond Park.

After reviewing more flood scenarios and encouraging people to explore the website, Hatch turned the floor over to Figus, who discussed the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

“Show of hands, how many of us in the room right now already have National Flood Insurance Program insurance?” she asked. About two-thirds of the audience raised their hands.

Figus encouraged them to sign up sooner rather than later, as most plans have a 30-day waiting period. Several local insurance agents were there to explain the intricacies of insuring property against floods. As Reuben Willis from State Farm began speaking about the benefits of the NFIP, Bruce Massey interjected.

“Hasn’t all that stuff just been gutted by Agent Orange?” Massey asked, referring to President Donald Trump.

Figus said the flood insurance program has not yet been affected by federal cuts.

“What is recommended by the city, that they said at a public meeting last week, is, if we are facing potential federal cuts on things, now is the time to sign up,” she said.

Figus said the city is working to maintain compliance within the federal flood insurance program. According to Willis, homeowners should reach out to an insurer to discuss flood insurance options and document everything if their property and home are flooded.

Figus has her own experience with flood insurance after the 2023 jökulhlaup. She remembers cataloguing everything she owned after the flood, down to manila folders she still has.

“My boyfriend was like, ‘What are you doing? How many folders?’ I think I made an extra 10 to 20 grand in the past two years of property insurance by actually looking through ‘Exactly what Amazon broom is this?’ and ‘Exactly how many sponges did I lose?’” she said.

Questions covered just about everything from comprehensive vehicle insurance and Homeowners Associations to how to deal with flood damage. The speakers provided as much detail as possible, sometimes supplementing with their own experiences from the previous two years’ record glacial outburst flooding events. Afterwards, the crowd dispersed to mingle at the different stations, asking specific questions about their situation and property.

Hatch said providing information and a supportive community were the goals behind the meeting.

“The idea was to inform people of what tools we have and how to use them,” he said. “And so it’s not just something they saw, something that was explained to them by one of their neighbors. I think it kind of helps people be more confident. But also, you get the chance to discuss the stuff. You know, it’s still scary, but it’s not less scary going through it with a neighbor.”

Jeanette Miller is a retired teacher who has lived on View Drive for 40 years. She said the potential of another record jökulhlaup is a scary situation, but events like these help her mentally prepare for it.

“If you don’t want to think about it, it makes you think about it and I think all you can do is just prepare yourself as best as possible,” Miller said.

View Drive residents recently learned the HESCO barriers being installed on the banks of the Mendenhall River would not topographically work for their street due to spacing issues. However, Miller said the city is doing the best it can in a tough situation.

“You know, realistically, View Drive is a dead-end street,” she said. “There’s less than 20 houses on this street. We are a small little speck in this whole picture. That doesn’t make you feel good when you live on View Drive, but I mean in reality they have to do what they do for the whole area, and what’s going to be a solution for the whole valley.”

Massey, a Scott Drive resident who lives downriver from the barriers, said he is concerned about the possibility of water displacement.

“Basic physics, I mean, it’s going to do nothing but increase the water flow down here, I’m sure,” he said. “The barriers, God bless them, for the people that were affected last year. But again, is that going to just channel an increase?”

He remembers walking down Meadow Lane last year, surveying the damage. Massey doesn’t feel like the federal environment is conducive to productive disaster response at the moment.

“My wife is really concerned. She knows this stuff far more than I do. And you know the fact of the matter is, I mean, she’s thinking, ‘Why buy insurance if it’s dependent upon FEMA, which is being absolutely gutted?’” he said. FEMA administers the NFIP, and the agency is facing significant cuts under the Trump administration.

Massey was dubious about using sandbags and said he would need at least 300 sandbags for his ranch-style house. He also said he doesn’t have answers for alternative flood preparations at the moment.

“If I don’t have sandbags, there’s that foam insulation stuff that you put on a crack, and it just explodes. It’s really big,” Massey said, adding maybe the foam would “keep stuff from coming in the house. But other than that, I don’t know.”

• Ellie Ruel can be reached via @juneauempire.com.