Winter flooding continues

BUTTE — With wintertime flooding along a problem stretch of the Old Glenn Highway appearing as if it will get worse before it gets better, state officials met with Mat-Su Borough officials Thursday to assess the situation.

Mat-Su Borough Emergency Manager Casey Cook said that until the water goes down the borough can’t get heavy equipment in to where it’s needed. So, for now anyway, the best he can offer people is sandbags — once he gets some dry sand.

Mat-Su Borough Assemblyman Jim Sykes, who represents the area, said he has heard ideas suggesting that borough officials get out on the ice with dynamite and blow up some ice dams. He said word from borough administration was that could cause problems that people downstream might not appreciate.

Stephen Lynch, who is renting one of the properties with water in the yard, said that the flooding seems to be cyclical.

“One day it’ll be here and the next day it’ll be back there,” he said.

Water in the back, he said, is waist-deep in spots. It’s filled up a trench until it was flush with the ground.

So far, Lynch said, it hasn’t gotten into his house and he’s been able to get in and out in his truck.

“If it gets to the point where we’re not able to access the home we’re probably going to go ahead and call it then,” he said. “Worst case scenario, we’ll move everything into the top floor and get a room at a hotel.”

Lynch has been in Alaska three months. He and his wife and child moved up from Arizona looking for a better job market and a colder climate. This is the first time he’s seen this kind of flooding.

As he spoke, Cook and Sykes talked with Adjutant General Tom Katkus, director of the Department of Military and Veteran’s Affairs, and McHugh Pierre, the department’s deputy director.

DMVA is the department that steps in when the state needs to declare an emergency. Pierre told Lynch that, until the borough asks for help his department won’t step in.

Pierre went to go check out the water behind Lynch’s house.

“You might need a wet suit if you’re going down past the first berm there,” Sykes told him.

Back at the Butte fire station, Cook and the state officials went through overhead photos and photos from nearby homes. Katkus told Cook he’d help with the paperwork if there was a military surplus forklift that the borough could lay hands on.

Cook said that he thought that the flooding was going to remain cyclical until something happens to unfreeze and thus unblock channels through the river ice that water usually travels through.

“If it doesn’t (warm up) they’re just going to have to deal with this all winter long until the spring and then it’s a big mess,” Cook said.

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