Rivers run high from rain

PALMER — With rainy weather Thursday and more predicted, Mat-Su Borough officials are keeping a wary eye on rivers that only a year ago caused widespread flooding.

As of Thursday, though, officials seemed optimistic the rivers would keep to their banks or only cause minor flooding.

“Right now it’s looking pretty good, as long as it just keeps to these little showers,” said the borough’s emergency manager, Casey Cook. “We’re not looking at any very heavy rainstorms right now, and with the dry summer that we’ve had it really opened up a lot of the absorption power of the dirt.”

As of Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service had four yellow dots on its map of the Valley indicating rivers or creeks near flood stage: the Talkeetna River at the railroad bridge, Montana Creek at the Parks Highway, Willow Creek at the highway and the Yentna River.

Cook said the Talkeetna River is a cause for concern above the bridge as well.

“Above the railroad bridge the river bed has risen, so that has made the water appear to be higher,” he said. “We’re keeping a close eye on that.”

Borough spokeswoman Patty Sullivan, in a press release issued Wednesday, noted that the Matanuska River, the site of a lot of the flooding last year, was two feet below flood stage and decreasing and that the Little Susitna River had set a record for the amount of water discharged per second.

Cook said the borough’s Flooding Task Force — set up in the wake of last year’s floods — had been out assessing the situation, as had local fire departments.

“We’ve had fire departments out looking at water levels and roads that were affected last September,” he said. “We’re just making sure that with the water that we have gotten they’re still passable and they’re rebuilt and repaired as well as they should be.”

The fall floods last year were eventually declared a federal disaster, costing millions of dollars, damaging hundreds of structures and destroying more than a dozen. It involved flooding in every major water body from the Susitna River to the Matanuska River.

The borough asks that to report flooding or high water, residents call 373-8800 during business hours, or after 5 p.m. call 911. If you are in imminent danger, call 911.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.