Flooding minimal from weekend warm-up

WASILLA — What flooding came with warming temperatures over the weekend and into Monday was mostly localized and not in area rivers, which came as a relief to responders like Mat-Su Borough Emergency Manager Casey Cook.

“Right now we’re not seeing any real rising in the water gauges and so we’re not too concerned about water levels right now on the river systems,” Cook said Monday.

The National Weather Service issued a flood warning for Sunday and Monday due to rain, warm temperatures and melting snow. Rain-slicked and potentially icy roads prompted the closing of Mat-Su Borough School District schools as well as Mat-Su College and Charter College.

There was a worry that increased water volumes would flow over ice-covered rivers; however, Cook said, the little flooding there was happened in low-lying neighborhoods and across the streets with frozen culverts.

That’s a problem for public works, not for emergency folks. Even traffic was pretty calm.

“I think folks are driving pretty well and kind of slowing down and leaving room,” Cook said. “I haven’t noticed a big influx of vehicle accidents.”

Of course, public works departments across the borough were hopping. Archie Giddings at the city of Wasilla said his staff had been out trying to deal with gigantic puddles on Peck Street, Nelson Road, Swanson Avenue and Lake Shore Avenue.

“There isn’t a lot we can do about them,” Giddings said.

On Nelson, he said, he happened to have a drain he could pump into at Iditapark. He tried a more creative solution on Peck.

“I had one truck pumping it and hauling it on Peck just to see if we could make a dent in it and that wasn’t getting anywhere,” Giddings said.

He said the city’s drainage system tends to rely on water percolating into the ground, but with a lot of the ground still frozen it hasn’t been soaking in. Hopefully, the ground will thaw enough to let the water through.

Flooding on Peck closed the street for part of Monday.

“We’ll be monitoring it to see what it’s looking like in the morning, take it day by day,” Giddings said.

The National Weather Service’s flood watch was for all of the Mat-Su Borough as well as Anchorage, the western Kenai Peninsula and portions of Prince William Sound.

The weather service urged people to avoid traveling on river ice as overflow and ice conditions are unsafe.

Rains tapered off Monday afternoon with highs in the 40s and 15 to 30 mph winds from the southeast, gusting to 40 to 50 mph.

And ended Monday night when temperatures dropped to the low 20s. After midnight, scattered snow and rain showers with patchy fog were expected. Winds were expected to decrease by midnight.

Tuesday’s forecast is mostly cloud with patchy morning fog and highs in the 20s and light winds. Clouds increase overnight with a chance of snow after midnight. Lows 10 to 20 above and light winds.

Snow is in the forecast Wednesday, too, with highs expected in the low to mid-20s and light winds.

Wednesday night temperatures drop to 5 degrees below to 5 above zero.

Temperatures remain in the teens Thursday and Friday with lows overnight to 10 below.

Snow returns to the forecast Saturday.

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