Fighting the flood: McRoberts Creek flash floods neighborhood

LAZY MOUNTAIN -- Heavy rains brought McRoberts Creek over its banks Tuesday morning and had neighbors along Marley Drive responding with everything from shovels and backhoes to phone calls to politicians and public works officials.

The creek was apparently clogged with logs and boulders somewhere upstream from where it crosses the property of Robert and Tamara Moore, who live at the end of Deweys Street, off Marley Drive. At about 4:30 a.m. Tuesday, the Moore family heard what was apparently a landslide coming down the shallow gorge that channels the creek across their property.

"It sounded like wind blowing," Tamara said.

The gorge is four to eight feet deep in the area around the Moore's property. The Moores have never seen the creek run this high, and they've lived next to it since 1995, according to Tamara.

The Moores were alerted by Robert's mother, Ruth, who lives just across the creek. The Moores said a flash flood brought trees, mud and small boulders down the stream bed, leading them to believe that McRoberts Creek had been clogged upstream, possibly by a landslide. Debris clogged the stream again later that morning, this time at the Moore's bridge.

The bridge survived, and both houses are on high ground, but the part of the property where two horses and a Nubian goat named Aesop live had been rearranged. Mud, rough cut lumber, fencing material and trees from upriver were strewn about.

"We were so organized, and now look at it. There's this mud everywhere," Tamara said.

Aesop's house was moved about thirty feet and pushed against a fence, doorway first. The goat was unharmed but trapped in his house by the fence and other McRoberts Creek flotsam.

At one point Tuesday, two backhoes worked to clean the area around the bridge and arrange some of the Moore's newly acquired boulders along the bank. A similar project was happening downstream where Mat-Su Borough public works had a backhoe digging out three half-culverts where Maud Road bridges the creek. That bridge leads to Maud Road Extension and ultimately to Rippy Trail. There are no homes on the extension road. Rippy Trail is used to access the Jim Lake area.

Tuesday afternoon there was apparently still a dam upstream from the Moore's driveway. Several small branches of McRoberts Creek crossed Dewey Street and flowed through yards and into the ditches that line Marley Drive. The street now has miniature dikes across nearly every driveway.

Robert Moore was going to explore upstream to see if he could clear more debris with the backhoe he'd rented.

"I don't know what it's doing to my neighbors, so I've got to find that other spot and clear it up," he said.

On Marley Drive a combination of circumstances protected David Witt's home from a flooded basement. Witt is remodeling an unfinished basement into bedrooms for his three sons. This summer he dug a hole on the uphill side of his home to accommodate a stairway. During the flooding the two mounds of dirt he had moved protected the contents of the unfinished basement.

"Did I get blessed or what? It was literally that far away," Witt said, holding his hands about 12 inches apart. The Frontiersman spoke with several area residents but was unable to find anyone who reported serious damage. Like Moore, Witt was concerned about neighbors downhill. He turned confessional when asked whether the drainage along Marley Drive was adequate.

"Some of this is my fault. I put this in without a culvert," he said, scratching his driveway with a boot.

New offshoots of McRoberts Creek fanned out over the neighborhood Tuesday afternoon. The Moore family had called the Mat-Su Borough for help Tuesday morning. Public works staff visited, but didn't respond with equipment except to start work downstream at the Maud Extension Bridge.

Mat-Su Borough Public Works Director Jim Swing said Tuesday morning that the borough can't help contain the stream on Moore's private land.

"Our road wasn't in danger, and our culverts weren't causing the problem so that pretty much eliminates us from being able to do anything," Swing said.

In the meantime Moore, who works as an EMT/firefighter on Fort Richardson, is logging hours on a rented backhoe.

"I'm sure it will cost me, but it's better than having everything flooded out," Moore said. Tamara Moore said she rode on horseback upstream to look at the landslide area.

"Something very major happened up there," Tamara said. "[The gorge] gets really narrow, and you can see trees and rocks in it."

She said State House Representative Scott Ogan visited the neighborhood, as did a reporter and photographer from TV station KTUU. She thinks that's a sign that her neighbors don't want little streams running through their property.

"Apparently more people have been calling. We'll see what happens tomorrow. They can't have them running through their yards all the time, can they?"

Wednesday morning, Swing told the Frontiersman that public works employees had reported that the creek was once again within it's banks. But later that same afternoon, Tamara Moore said some of the newly born McRoberts Creek off-shoots started up again at about 1 p.m. Once again, the water was leaving the creek's main channel at some point upstream from the Moore's property and then headed toward her neighbors on Marley Street, Tamara said.