On Thursday morning, the National Weather Service Office in Juneau detected that water levels were dropping in Suicide Basin. Sometimes, that’s the first sign that a glacial outburst flood is beginning.
But by Thursday evening, forecasters confirmed that flooding was not in fact happening. For Mendenhall Valley residents like Renee Culp Tl’aagunk, the false alarm brought back memories of August’s flood, which swamped nearly 300 homes, including her house on Emily Way.
“Last night, it was full-on re-experiencing the flood,” Culp said. “I stayed up late in the evening doing double checks of are the sandbags in place? Is everything off the floor? So I was doing like the last minute prep and also freaking out, you know? Full of anxiety, and full of panic.”
More than two months after that record-breaking flood, many residents are struggling with their mental health. At the same time, they’re trying to prepare for another flood. Some have limited work on their homes, with the knowledge that they might flood again soon, while others are stocking up on sandbags or shelling out for more substantial flood barriers to protect themselves.
According to hydrologists with the weather service and the University of Alaska Southeast, the amount of water in the basin right is only enough to reach a moderate flood stage. That means water could threaten homes on View Drive and Meander Way, but most houses would be spared.
Still, there are a lot of unknowns when it comes to predicting the flood. There’s not enough information to determine how fast water would drain from the basin, or where the Mendenhall River might breach its banks and what direction the water might come from as it seeps into neighborhoods.
The basin could release at any point, though it usually doesn’t release in the wintertime — the latest it has drained in the past is late October. Right now, it’s still filling up, with the promise that it will let loose eventually.
While Culp waits for that, plans to get her house in order have stalled.
“We have furniture ordered, and we asked them to not deliver it. We have a refrigerator ordered, and we ask them not to have that delivered. I mean, like our artwork isn’t on the walls, our house isn’t back to normal,” Culp said. “Because if we flood again, even a couple of inches in a house is pretty devastating to the house.”
Culp and her wife Kathleen Rado have found some degree of comfort in preparing alongside their community. They’ve started a community-led flood fighting group.
Over the last few weeks, the couple and their collaborators have been coordinating evacuation plans amongst neighbors, sharing ideas for flood mitigation and having semi-regular meetings. There’s also a webpage for flood-affected residents, and a Facebook group.
Noah Teshner has been active there, advertising his sandbags. He purchased 10,000 of them after the flood, with the intention of selling them for cheap to his neighbors, and he said there’s been a lot of demand — a couple thousand have sold so far. Teshner said he’s noticed a particular need from those who are elderly or disabled, people who worry that they’ll be left scrambling to do last minute preparations on their own when another flood comes.
Last weekend, the Juneau Douglas High School hockey team, led by head coach Matt Boline, helped fill many of the bags with sand Teshner purchased.
“And the hockey team has been great, because not only did they fill them, but they’ve already delivered a bunch,” Teschner said. “I know there’s more people out there that need them, and I’m just hoping they’ll they’ll reach out.”
Like many of his neighbors, Teshner said he’d like to see a more substantial flood fighting solution across the Mendenhall Valley. The City and Borough of Juneau has introduced a plan to build a temporary levee along portions of the Mendenhall River. But Teshner wanted something quicker – something to comfort Juneau’s flood-affected neighborhoods as they wait in limbo.
“That’s why the sandbags feel good, because you’re dependent on yourself, your neighbors, the people you can really trust to work together, ” he said. “And you can go, ‘I’ve done everything I can.'”
Teshner, his neighbors and some more volunteers from the hockey team will be back at it again, filling and delivering sandbags by request this weekend.
Meanwhile, the latest updates on a potential flood can be found on the National Weather Service’s Suicide Basin monitoring page.