Residents in some parts of Juneau prepared to evacuate ahead of what could be a record surge of flooding as rainwater and snowmelt in a huge basin dammed by Alaska\u2019s Mendenhall Glacier started to flow downstream toward the capital city.<\/p>\n
Officials in recent days have been warning people in the flood zone to be ready to evacuate. On Tuesday morning they confirmed water had started escaping the ice dam, with flooding expected into late Wednesday. They advised people in the city\u2019s flood zone to leave.<\/p>\n
One couple said they\u2019re encouraging their neighbors to evacuate, but plan to stay put after sending their kids outside the flood zone. Their three daughters, aged 11, 10, and 8, were sent to a friend\u2019s house at higher ground Tuesday to make absolutely sure they\u2019re safe.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls are having sleepovers outside the flood zone,\u201d said Sam Hatch, a civilian Coast Guard vessel safety regulator. \u201cA friend from work has three daughters as well so we shoved them all in one house and they\u2019re having a six-girl epic four-day right-before-school-starts sleepover. I really owe my friend for taking them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Mendenhall Glacier is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from Juneau, population 30,000, and is a popular tourist attraction<\/a> due to its proximity to Alaska\u2019s capital city and easy access on walking trails. Homes on the city\u2019s outskirts are within miles of Mendenhall Lake, which sits below the glacier, and many front the Mendenhall River.<\/p>\n The water that\u2019s being released in the glacial outburst is flowing into the river, putting homes that are closest to the river at risk. The National Weather Service said it expected flooding to peak at 4 p.m. local time Wednesday.<\/p>\n \u201cThis will be a new record, based on all of the information that we have,\u201d Nicole Ferrin, a weather service meteorologist, told a news conference Tuesday. <\/p>\n Basin flooding is an annual concern<\/p>\n Flooding from the basin has become an annual concern<\/a> since 2011, and in recent years has swept away houses and swamped hundreds of homes. Government agencies installed temporary barriers this year in hopes of protecting several hundred homes in the inundation area from widespread damage.<\/p>\n The flooding happens because a smaller glacier near Mendenhall Glacier retreated \u2014 a casualty of the warming climate<\/a> \u2014 and left a basin that fills with rainwater and snowmelt each spring and summer. When the water creates enough pressure, it forces its way under or around the ice dam created by the Mendenhall Glacier and enters Mendenhall Lake and eventually the Mendenhall River, as it did Tuesday.<\/p>\n Before the basin reached the limit of its capacity and began overtopping, the water level was rising rapidly \u2014 as much as 4 feet (1.22 meters) per day during especially sunny or rainy days, according to the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n The city saw successive years of record flooding in 2023<\/a> and 2024<\/a>, with the river last August cresting at 15.99 feet (4.9 meters), about 1 foot (0.3 meters) over the prior record set a year earlier, and flooding extending farther into the Mendenhall Valley. This year\u2019s flooding was predicted to crest at between 16.3 and 16.8 feet (4.96 to 5.12 meters).<\/p>\n