Borough plans for potential flooding

MAT-SU — If the warming temperatures have you nervously eyeing a nearby river, you’re not alone.

The flooding last fall, in which homes were inundated along pretty much every major river and stream in the Valley, is fresh in everyone’s minds. That includes the Mat-Su Borough Department of Emergency Services.

So far, borough’s emergency manager Casey Cook said river forecasts call for moderate to low concern. There was a bit of localized flooding from melting snow off of Hollywood Road.

“Public works went out and moved some water and I haven’t heard anything back from any of the residents today as to needing more,” Cook said Friday.

Meanwhile, folks in Talkeetna are keeping vigilant about the Talkeetna River, which caused some of the worst flooding this fall and which many were concerned might have ice-damming troubles this spring.

“I’ve been up in Talkeetna twice this week looking at their river,” Cook said. “There are some big ice chunks still up there, so it is a concern.”

So far, so good, but “that could change tomorrow or Sunday or next Wednesday or two weeks from now, but we’re keeping an eye on it,” he said.

He said there are people up there watching as well as a network of amateur radio watchers who are keeping in touch via HAM radio with updates about river conditions.

“We’re still looking and just hoping that this slow melt off occurs,” he said.

But there is potential for flooding to be problematic and maybe in areas where it usually isn’t. Cook said that the soggy fall followed by a quick freeze-up has lead to a situation where the ground is frozen pretty deeply. So as the top layers thaw the lower layers are still frozen when they wouldn’t normally be.

“Normally that water would dissipate down into it and get soaked up,” Cook said.

But the frozen ground keeps the water up higher.

“We’re watching a lot of the residential areas as a whole,” he said.

As for the borough’s plans to respond to floods, Cook said that there’s now a Flood Task Force.

Under the new procedure, when a call about flooding comes into emergency dispatchers, the fire department will go assess and address life safety issues. Then they’ll send an assessment to Cook who will decide whether to mobilize the task force and which parts of it to bring — code compliance, public works, planning, etc.

“We’ll decide if we need to provide sandbags or if public works needs to thaw out a culvert,” he said.

The task force will then provide daily briefings to borough administration and to the assembly members that represent the district in which the flooding is occurring.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.