Due to growing concerns about flooding, city officials have installed emergency flood barriers along the riverbanks several miles.
Watch the bear charge at the Seattle Kraken Mascot in Alaska
Seattle Kraken Mascot Bui and player John Hayden were surprised by the bear during their team’s annual trip to Alaska.
Emergency managers are urging many residents of Juneau, the Alaska capital, to evacuate as summer glacial floods driven by climate change are threatened to flood the area.
Officials say the floods from the Mendenhall River are at the peak on August 13th at about 4pm or at about 8pm in the eastern part. They hope that the two-mile worth of emergency flood barriers that ended the interroll last month will contain water from Mendenhall Valley, where the majority of Juneau’s 32,000 full-time residents live.
“Residents are encouraged to evacuate areas that are flooded by potential floods,” the Juneau authorities city and district said in a message on August 12. “Please don’t go near the river.”
Gov. Mike Dunleavy has also issued a pre-disaster declaration, citing the devastation caused by the “glacial explosion” in both 2023 and 2024.
As of noon on August 12, the Mendenhall River in Juneau had risen from its normal level of about five feet to 10 feet, reaching a “moderate” flood stage, the National Weather Service reported. Last year’s record set was 16 feet deep, and predictors say the river can surpass that.
According to the Weather Service, predictors estimate that 14.6 billion gallons of water were released during last year’s floods, sufficient to fill more than 22,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Floods over the past few years have overwhelmed the basement, destroyed infrastructure and collapsed buildings near the riverbank.
Such glacial explosions occur when ice dams that hold the lake down (in this case, a suicide basin) collapse from the summer heat and release water in a short period of time. The Suicide Basin is part of the Mendenhall Glacier, a popular tourist destination that is easily reached from Juneau.
Federal scientists say climate change is melting glaciers faster and exacerbating the dangers as rainfall patterns change. According to the National Weather Service, the first recorded explosion flood from the glacier occurred in 2011.
Floods have been growing concern for Juneau over the past few years, and federally aided city officials have set up emergency flood barriers along the riverbanks, deemed the highest risk of being overloaded. The new barrier is designed to contain floods of this potential scale, but authorities are asking residents to evacuate as a precaution.
According to the Federal National Center for Environmental Information, Alaska has been warming twice as fast over the past decades, with its average annual temperature rising 3.1 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century.
