A huge pelvis of rainwater and snow melted by the Mendenhall Glacier of Alaska started to release, and officials insisted on Tuesday to evacuate residents in some parts of Juneau prior to what a record current of flood water could be downstream.
Civil servants in recent days have warned people in the flood zone to be ready to evacuate. On Tuesday morning they confirmed that water had begun to escape on the IJsdam and flowed downstream, with floods that are expected at the end of Tuesday to Wednesday.
Floods from the pelvis have become an annual care and has weakened houses and flooded hundreds of houses in recent years. This year, government agencies have installed a temporary tax in the hope of monitoring widespread damage.
“This will be a new record, based on all the information we have,” Nicole Ferrin, a meteorologist from the National Weather Service, told a press conference on Tuesday.
The Mendenhall -Glacier – becoming a thinner, receding glacier that is an important tourist attraction in Southeast – Alaska – acts as a dam for suicide basin, which fills every spring and summer with rainwater and snow melting. The basin itself remained behind when a smaller glacier in the neighborhood withdrew.
When the water builds up sufficient pressure in the basin, it forces its way under or around the IJsdam and the Mendenhall Lake enters and finally the Mendenhall River. Before the basin reached the limit of its capacity and started to find out during the weekend, the water level rose rapidly – no less than 4 feet (1.22 meters) per day during especially sunny or rainy days, according to the National Weather Service.
The threat of the so-called flooding of the glacier outburst has had no problems with Juneau since 2011. In some years there has been a limited flood of streets or property near the lake or the river.
But 2023 and 2024 marked consecutive years of record floods, with the river last August cresting at 15.99 feet (4.9 meters), about 1 foot (0.3 meters) above the earlier record that was set a year earlier, and floods that extend further in the Mendenhall -Valley. This year's flood was predicted to struggle between 16.3 and 16.8 feet (4.96 to 5.12 meters).
Almost 300 homes were damaged last year.
A large eruption can release around 15 billion liters of water, according to the University of Alaska Southeast and Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center. That is the equivalent of almost 23,000 Olympic swimming pools. During last year's flood, the flow rate in the river of the ports was about half of that of Niagara Falls, the researchers say.
This year, city officials responded to worries of real estate by working together with national, federal and tribal entities to install a temporary dike along about 2.5 miles of the river bank in an attempt to guard against widespread floods. The installation of approximately 10,000, four feet (1.2 meters) High barriers is intended to protect more than 460 properties against flooding levels comparable to last year, said Nate Rumsey, deputy director at the Engineering and Public Works department of the city.
The US Army Corps of Engineers is at the start of what is expected to be a process of studying circumstances in the region for a year and investigating options for a more permanent solution. The timeline has made some residents angry, who say it is unreasonable.
It is expected that the floods of the eruption will continue as long as the Mendenhall glacier acts as an IJsdam to close the pelvis, which, according to the researchers from the University and Science Center, could include another 25 to 60 years.
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Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer in Juneau contributed to this report.
