Hundreds of people in Juneau’s Mendenhall Valley are living on the front line of a climate change disaster they didn’t see coming. This is Outburst, the story of how glacial outburst flooding has escalated faster than human imagination – and public policies to protect people.
KTOO takes you from the floodwaters to the glacier’s edge to uncover why the annual floods happen, how they got out of control and what can be done to keep Juneau safe.
Juneau city officials are looking at everything from dams to explosives to keep Mendenhall Valley residents safe from future glacial outburst floods.
As Suicide Basin fills up each year, Mendenhall Valley residents are more anxious about the coming flood. They want the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to figure out a permanent fix and build it quickly, but the Corps says a long term solution could take years.
The third episode of Outburst looks at how other countries have protected residents from glacial outburst floods and why a local solution is taking so long.
KTOO’s Alix Soliman takes listeners from a Swiss community facing similar threats to the halls of the U.S. Senate to understand when residents might get a permanent fix – and what that might look like. KTOO reporter Clarise Larson cowrote this episode.
