Glacier outburst flooding damages over 100 homes in Alaska capital

An outburst of flooding from a glacier brought severe flooding to Alaska’s capital, with more than 100 homes experiencing damage.
The glacial outburst flood from the Mendenhall Glacier began Monday, causing water levels to reach up to 16 feet in Juneau by Tuesday, according to city officials. There have been no reports of injuries in the city of about 32,000 people as of Wednesday.
The glacier’s Suicide Basin began to peak on Aug. 1 after July saw twice the amount of rain the area usually receives, Juneau officials confirmed in a news release. Officials say that water from Mendenhall Lake significantly poured into the Mendenhall River by Sunday, leading to evacuation warnings for residents Monday. The lake’s water levels declined over 400 feet from the outburst primarily between Monday and Tuesday, officials said.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy declared a state disaster emergency Tuesday, increasing emergency response efforts and allowing communities to reimburse emergency response costs and repair damaged infrastructure.
“I am grateful no one has been injured or killed by this morning’s outburst flood. Emergency responders and managers have done an outstanding job keeping their residents safe,” Dunleavy said. “In addition to the Disaster Declaration, I have directed all state agencies to support the community as they deal with this major flooding.”
Glacial lake outbursts like this are spawned when basins drain rapidly, something Juneau officials compared to “pulling out the plug in a full bathtub.”
Since 2011, the state has seen more outbursts primarily due to climate change, a University of Alaska Southeast environmental science professor Eran Hood told The Associated Press last year. A rise in global temperatures generated by fossil fuel pollution is resulting in glaciers like the Mendenhall and Suicide.
Glacier melt in a major Alaskan icefield has accelerated and could reach an irreversible tipping point earlier than previously thought, according to a scientific study published in the peer-reviewed British journal Nature Communications last month. The state is home to some of Earth’s largest icefields, and their melting is a major contributor to sea-level rise slowly putting some of the world’s coastal areas underwater.
“It’s incredibly worrying that our research found a rapid acceleration since the early 21st century in the rate of glacier loss across the Juneau icefield,” study lead author Bethan Davies, a glaciologist in the United Kingdom’s Newcastle University, said in a statement.
Juneau’s troubles come a year after the city grappled with destructive flooding that collapsed at least two homes into the waterway and prompted evacuations. Water levels from this year’s outburst reached more than a foot higher than last year’s.
Officials noted that last year’s glacier outburst and flooding was notably quicker than previous ones.
Similarly, water from the Suicide Basin gushed into Mendenhall Lake, down the Mendenhall River and flowed into the city.
Contributing: Doyle Rice