{"id":74481,"date":"2025-08-16T16:38:47","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T16:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/74481\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T16:38:47","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T16:38:47","slug":"alaska-city-avoids-record-flooding-from-glacier-dam-thanks-to-new-barriers-national","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/74481\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska city avoids record flooding from glacier dam thanks to new barriers – National"},"content":{"rendered":"

New sandbag-style barriers installed along a river in Alaska\u2019s<\/a> capital city held back record levels of flooding<\/a> and prevented widespread damage after an ice dam at the nearby Mendenhall Glacier<\/a> released a massive amount of rainwater and snowmelt downstream, officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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Water pooled on several streets and in some yards in Juneau<\/a> after the Mendenhall River crested earlier in the day, and high water was expected to persist for hours. But many residents in the flood zone evacuated ahead of peak water levels, and there were no damage reports similar to the last two years, when flooding was rampant and some homes washed away.<\/p>\n

The barriers \u201creally have protected our community,\u201d Juneau City Manager Katie Koester told a news conference. \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for them, we would have hundreds and hundreds of flooded homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Mendenhall Glacier is about 12 miles (19 kilometers) from Juneau, home to 30,000 people in southeast Alaska, and is a popular tourist attraction due to its proximity 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, into which the glacial outburst flowed.<\/p>\n

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Juneau, which is accessible only by boat and plane, is 570 miles (917 kilometers) southeast of Anchorage, Alaska\u2019s largest city.<\/p>\n

The flooding won\u2019t impact Friday\u2019s summit in Anchorage between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tBasin flooding is a yearly worry\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Flooding from the basin has become an annual concern since 2011 and has gotten worse in recent years. It happens because a smaller glacier near Mendenhall Glacier retreated \u2014 a casualty of the warming climate \u2014 and left a basin that fills with rainwater and snowmelt each spring and summer, dammed by the glacier.<\/p>\n

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When the water builds up enough pressure, it forces its way under or around the ice dam, enters Mendenhall Lake, and flows down the Mendenhall River.<\/p>\n

The city saw successive years of record flooding in 2023 and 2024, with flooding extending farther into the Mendenhall Valley.<\/p>\n

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Last year, nearly 300 residences were damaged.<\/p>\n

A large outburst can release some 15 billion gallons of water, according to the University of Alaska Southeast and Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center. That\u2019s the equivalent of nearly 23,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. During last year\u2019s flood, the flow rate in the rushing Mendenhall River was about half that of Niagara Falls, the researchers say.<\/p>\n

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City officials responded to concerns from property owners this year by working with state, federal and tribal entities to install a temporary levee along roughly 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) of riverbank in an attempt to guard against widespread flooding. The 10,000 \u201cHesco\u201d barriers are essentially giant, reinforced sandbags intended to protect more than 460 properties, said emergency manager Ryan O\u2019Shaughnessy.<\/p>\n

But the measure was not without critics. Two homeowners have sued, complaining that the government was taking their property to erect the barriers without compensating them.<\/p>\n

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On Tuesday and Wednesday, some water seeped into yards through drains that had been installed under the barriers. In other spots, trees floating down the river struck and damaged the barriers, officials said.<\/p>\n

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is at the start of what\u2019s expected to be a yearslong process of studying conditions in the region and examining options for a more permanent solution, such as a levee. The timeline has angered some residents, who say it\u2019s unreasonable.<\/p>\n

Outburst floods are expected to continue as long as the Mendenhall Glacier acts as an ice dam to seal off the basin, which could span another 25 to 60 years, according to the university and science center researchers.<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer in Juneau contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t&copy 2025 The Canadian Press\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New sandbag-style barriers installed along a river in Alaska\u2019s capital city held back record levels of flooding and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":74482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[14343,49,48,295,33706,45943,45944,66,2845],"class_list":["post-74481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-alaska","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-flooding","tag-juneau","tag-mendenhall-glacier","tag-science","tag-u-s-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}