Borough should advocate for state review of flooding

Technology has come a long way in the last 100 years. And it’s moved ahead by leaps and bounds over the past decade.

But telecommunications still has its limitations.

For instance, we wonder how our public servants from Alaska Department of Transportation and the Mat-Su Borough can tell just from a phone conversation that the flooding residents along Wasilla Creek are experiencing is an act of nature?

We suspect that even with newfangled tools such as video conferencing and VOIP communications that the phone is still an inadequate tool for such a determination. Without investigating its causes, it is unacceptable to tell residents who call with flooding concerns that this is on them, that they live in a floodplain.

No one denies that the houses are in an area that has flooded before and near a creek.

Residents do raise a good point, however.

They ask whether state and borough staff would respond the same if the water was rising in one of Mayor Larry DeVilbiss’ houses or Assembly member Ron Arvin’s home.

Would their outcry be summarily shrugged off? Should who you are matter in how public servants respond?

We would feel more comfortable with residents being asked to accept 100 percent of the liability here if either the borough or the state had sent staff to investigate the flooding taking place along Wasilla Creek.

Did new culverts installed with the upgrades to the Palmer-Wasilla Highway contribute to the flooding? No one knows. As far as we know, no one from the state or borough has investigated the culverts as culprits.

In our representative democracy, we elect residents from among us to serve the public on behalf of all of the people. No one at the state or local level is any more entitled than the next person to timely and thoughtful response from our public servants. No one.

If the situation has been given more than a cursory review and dismissal by borough and state staff who are responsible for life and safety issues — above all others — we’d welcome that information and applaud it.

However, for now the borough says its up to the state to investigate, and so it will take no action. And the state isn’t saying anything. DOT has not returned repeated calls on the subject from Frontiersman staff.

The water in Wasilla Creek has been out of its banks for weeks and shows no signs of abating. Residents lack resources of the scale needed to protect their homes and families, and lack the financial resources to sell and buy new homes on higher ground.

It is time for the borough to push on behalf of its residents for the state to act to fully investigate, and for the borough to make an honest effort at protecting these homes and families.

Surely these taxpayers deserve more than a shrug from the borough and a gift of 500 unfilled sandbags.