Monday was a blue-bird day in Juneau, but Mendenhall Lake and River were rising quickly, on pace to break flood records.
The Mendenhall Campground took on water first. On Monday afternoon, campsite host Brendan Beard was wading through the ice cold glacial water in a pair of swim trunks.
“It’s amazing. Before it was a slow trickle and now it just seems to be flooding in real quick,” he said.
Up behind the Mendenhall Glacier, a glacial lake known as Suicide Basin is draining, sending billions of gallons of water downstream in what’s known as a glacial outburst flood. Last year’s outburst flooding was unprecedented, with a crest near 15 feet. Surging water tore up the banks of the Mendenhall River, which was raging on Monday.
Kim Titus was watching it from the Back Loop Road bridge. He lives on River Road, where many of his neighbors lost land due to erosion. At least one family in the neighborhood had their house swept away entirely. The whole bank is now lined with riprap, which residents installed in hopes of protecting their property.
Titus’ house is slightly further back, so it didn’t take on water last year. But he’s been keeping a close eye on the flood forecast, which predicts a flood crest of 15.7 feet — even higher than last year — sometime past midnight on Tuesday.
“It’s nerve-wracking,” he said. “I just talked to another friend of mine who lives down there and he goes, ‘Well, I won’t be sleeping tonight.’”
Just around the corner, Bob Winter planned to stay put at his house on View Drive. It sits close to the riverbank, and it’s taken on water several times since he built it in 1981.
“I’ve been flooded more than anybody,” he said.
Sometime after the first glacial outburst floods started happening, just over a decade ago, he had the house raised three feet. It wasn’t enough. During last year’s flood, it took on more than an inch of water. So Winter raised it three more feet. The work cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“This wasn’t how I planned on spending retirement money, but we didn’t want to move,” he said.
Winter hopes that the house will be high enough to avoid flooding this year, but only time will tell.
“It is what it is and if it gets to my house there’s going to be a whole lot of the Valley flooded,” he said.
The City and Borough of Juneau is advising all residents west of Riverside Drive to evacuate. Those who need a place to go can find a city shelter at Floyd Dryden Middle School starting at 8 p.m.
