Ron Flinn spent Saturday getting his belongings off the floor on the lower level of his two-story home at the end of View Drive and shortly before noon on Sunday a friend was helping secure a heating fuel tank outside the house to keep it from being moved by flood waters.
He said at that point he was ready to wait out the expected overnight flooding of his street — which would cut off his access from the rest of Juneau — in the home he finished building in 1982.
“I did as much as I can,” he said. “The upstairs stays dry. I got everything out of the flood zone in the house…I don’t have to get anything today.”
Homes along View Drive — among those in Juneau closest to the Mendenhall Glacier — were expected to be among the most affected by the glacial outburst flood from Suicide Basin expected to peak early Monday morning, with some further down the Mendenhall River along Meander Way also expected to experience flooding. However, the forecasted crest of the Mendenhall River at 11.31 feet sometime between 1 and 4 a.m. Monday is far below the record 15.99 feet that occurred Aug. 6.
Ron Flinn explains preparations made to his home on View Drive, including securing a fuel tank that moved during record flooding in August, on Sunday morning with a glacial outburst flood expected to cut off his access to town by Sunday evening. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Flinn said the ground level of his home has been flooded during record river levels each of the past two summers and the fuel tank washed up against the side of his house this year. While the current flood isn’t likely to reach his home he wasn’t taking chances, including the precaution of strapping the fuel tank down and to a nearby tree.
While Flinn was finishing his preparations, others in the affected areas were setting up generators, stacking sandbags, checking on pets of absent homeowners, planning a hotel stay near the airport to ensure they can catch an early Monday flight and inviting people over for a backyard viewing of the river roaring past at its peak.
Many people came by Melvin Park on Sunday to fill some of the 75,000 sandbags the City and Borough of Juneau started giving out free on Saturday morning to people whose homes were damaged by the flood in August. Some residents said they were just stacking them somewhere safe for when they might be needed, but Toni-Marie Gonzales said her family is among those not likely to take chances even if the flood appears unlikely to reach her home.
“I think we will deploy them,” she said, adding. “I’m probably not going to be sleeping tonight.”
Derik Swanson, filling sandbags at the park for his house on Lakeview Court with the help of a friend, said he also planned to place sandbags at least around his garage for protection since it’s hard to know for certain what flooding might occur.
“I guess it really depends on how quickly the water’s coming through the river,” he said. “It seems like the river is wider here because it got eroded pretty good. So hopefully we won’t see any of it.”
Sandbags are stacked outside a home Sunday afternoon on Meander Way , where flood waters are expected to seep when a glacial outburst flood from Suicide Basin peaks early Monday morning. (Mark Sabbatini / Juneau Empire)
Setting up a generator at his daughter’s house at the end of Meander Way at midday Sunday was Mike Lockridge, who said he wants to be sure there’s heat and other comforts at the house if the city shuts off the neighborhood electricity — as it did in August — due to subsurface power installations.
“When it hits the transformer they shut power off so the kids who play in this water don’t get electrocuted,” he said.
With temperatures in the Valley forecast to drop as low as 20 degrees overnight, Lockridge said ensuring heaters that could run off the generator were at the house was also important.
Portable heaters were also being set up by Ann Wilkinson Lind — but outside her home in the backyard rather than inside, after she issued an invite on a community flood-support Facebook page for people to come watch the Mendenhall River as it flowed along the heavily rock-reinforced bank behind her home.
She said she’s watched the record floods the past two years — but in this instance she also wants people to be aware of the potential hazards that exist during future floods. Among those is her property is among the ones where the city is considering placing four miles of Hesco barriers to build a semipermanent levee and she’s concerned an improper alignment of them could result in water being diverted into her neighborhood rather than away from it.
“It’s going to take the path of least resistance and it’s going to go around those barriers down the street,” she said, adding one of the things the city would need to do is restore some of the nearby riverbank where the water now hits with extra force due to the realignment.
The Juneau Assembly is scheduled to discuss the barriers and other flood-related matters at its regular meeting Monday night.
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
