Mat River hungry again

SUTTON — Val Musial has lived on the banks of the Matanuska River since 1952. But recently, she noticed a change in her view from its banks.

“I seen it sitting there,” said Val Musial, who lives with husband Ed in a one-story cinderblock and wood-frame house. “I told him, ‘There’s something different in the river this morning. Come look!’ So we got our binoculars and he said ‘That’s somebody’s house!’”

The roofline of the former Luch home juts from the river about a mile from where it was swept Thursday from its perch along Matanuska River.

Summer erosion from the rain and melting at Matanuska Glacier are fueling high waters that have washed away the Luch home and threaten the homes of several other longtime Mat-Su Borough families.

The river was about a mile away from their home when Val and her husband, Ed, 93, homesteaded about a mile north of Sutton in 1952. Its main channel now flows a few feet from their back door, having devoured their septic tank and a small salmon stream in previous years during its gradual shift north.

The couple says they have no plans for evacuation. Unlike other houses near Mile 66, Glenn Highway, the Musial home rests on a cinder block foundation, which Ed says will protect the couple from the encroaching river.

“It’s like our daughter says, ‘Mom, by the time Dad gets excited about the river, it’s going to be too damn late,’” Val jokes. “As long as Ed’s not afraid, I’m not afraid.”

Ed does not equivocate.

“The house will never wash out,” he said.

Rainfall and warm weather

Borough officials say that the powers behind the flooding are almost geologic in magnitude, as the Matanuska River shifts to meet the Knik River before both flow into the Knik Arm. As such, any measures undertaken to redirect the river would inevitably fail, borough officials say. In other sections along the river, residents blame an attempt to dam the river using cars for the beginning of the shift.

“The river is moving again,” said borough emergency manager Casey Cook.

The most recent shift was caused by rainfall over the last week, and hot summer temperatures, which cause melting on the Matanuska Glacier and sends more water into the river.

“It’s just kind of a combination of the two,” Cook said. “It (the river) is going to continue to eat away at that new channel that it made over the last couple years. Just the amount of water, and the velocity of the water. It’s hitting softer spots on the bank now.”

Farther south along the road, Evelyn and Paul Johnson live in a brown one-bedroom bedecked in ornaments. Last year when river water pooled but did not flow in their backyard. However, this year, water streams next to their house in a constant, milky torrent. The retired mine worker and his wife said Friday they didn’t yet have an evacuation plan.

“We haven’t made any plans about leaving,” Evelyn said.

Flood plain administrator Pamela Ness was snapping photographs of the house. Her job entails documenting “high water events,” like the most recent, so that officials have a reference point to assess property damages later. When Ness visited the Luch property Tuesday, the house remained safely on the bank, and a shed remained untouched, and the river was several feet away.

“In three days, it’s taken like 40 feet of land,” she said.

By 3 p.m., Thursday, the house, and all the outbuildings were gone, Ness said. All that remained Friday was a length of PVC pipe protruding into the river.

When the Johnsons arrived in the area in 1979, the river was closer to the near side of the Valley. In 30 years, the river has moved from being a distant murmur to a short hike away.

The Johnsons said they would consider moving in with family in the event that the river ate away the last portion of their house.

“Two or three days it’s been in the backyard,” Evelyn said. “I know the posts under the porches and the greenhouse, they’re sitting on cement. I don’t know what will happen if they get washed out.”

‘There’s nothing they can do about it’

A bit further down river, landlord and owner Lynn Williams, works the phone. She moved into the property in 2006, and at that point the river was only about 800 feet away. It approached the 30-foot mark. The river poured over and under a fallen tree and gnawed at the grassy bank.

The property is a rental last occupied by a family last year, and Williams’ former residence has been vacant over concerns about the river. Williams — who started a coin laundry in Sutton and has lived in Palmer — said she was out Friday afternoon assessing what would need to be done for emergency measures.

“The force of the water and the direction it’s coming, it could be any time,” she said. “There’s so much power right now with the water where it’s at.”

Electrical lines would need to be disconnected from the house so a river pulling the house away didn’t disconnect them and potentially start a fire. Fuel and propane tanks would need to be relocated. Her grief is somewhat measured — the last tenant of her building moved out in November 2014 — but she feels for others in potentially more dire straits.

“My heart goes out to them,” she said. “It is their dwelling and where they live. It’s like a forest fire or any other strong force of nature that comes through. There’s nothing they can do about it.”

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.