As the state of Alaska responds to Juneau’s disaster declaration, the capital city is bracing for heavy rain and potential flooding from an atmospheric river expected to hit Southeast late Thursday night.
This comes after back-to-back snowstorms dumped more than four feet of snow on Juneau. The city and tribal governments issued a joint disaster declaration Tuesday, requesting help from the state as local resources have been stretched thin.
The National Weather Service issued a flood watch in Juneau for Friday morning through Saturday evening.
At a press conference held in coordination with city, state and tribal officials Wednesday evening, NWS Warning Coordination Meteorologist Nicole Ferrin said the agency expects the storm to bring both snow and rain to Juneau.
“The most likely scenario right now is for anywhere from four to five inches of snow out of that event,” Ferrin said. “But if the warm-up takes a little bit longer into the day on Friday, then we could see upwards of possibly seven inches of snow before we change to rain.”
She says the heaviest rain is expected to hit Juneau on Friday.
Streets have already been pooling with water due to warming temperatures and rain, and Ferrin said to expect road conditions to worsen with the deluge coming while snow and ice block drainage.
But she said the agency is not expecting snowmelt to cause much of the flooding at this point.
“The snow itself will absorb a lot of the water, because we had some dry layers in there initially,” she said.
Yesterday, Gov. Mike Dunleavy verbally approved Juneau’s disaster declaration.
“That verbal declaration carries the weight of law,” said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesperson for Alaska’s Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, during the press briefing. “He activated the state’s public assistance program, which is to fund repairs to damaged critical infrastructure and also to help with emergency response costs.”
In addition to helping clear roofs of public buildings like schools, water treatment facilities and Bartlett Regional Hospital, the state also plans to help dig out storm drains and fire hydrants.
But state and city officials said that the assistance from this declaration will not include helping local residents or businesses clear snow from their roofs.
“The declaration and assistance from the state is unfortunately not available to help clear snow from private residences or commercial properties,” said Deputy City Manager Robert Barr at a special Juneau Assembly meeting Wednesday evening, where the city adopted a resolution approving the disaster declaration.
Barr said the state’s individual assistance program is designed to help private residences, but only after property has been damaged. The program doesn’t prevent damage.
Barr said the city has been prioritizing shoveling the roofs of public buildings based on how close each building is to its designed snow load capacity, which he said staff have been measuring daily or sometimes more often.
“Some are quite close, very few — only one that I’m aware of right now — are over [weight capacity],” Barr said. “That’s the Auke Bay Fire Station. So we’ve limited occupancy to that, and we’ll be addressing it as quickly as we can.”
Pat Dryer, an avalanche forecaster at the Alaska Department of Transportation, said the agency is anticipating road closures due to the potential for large avalanches.
“Given the current weather outlook, we’re anticipating heavy snowfall, heavy rain and warming temperatures at higher elevations,” he said. “This will lead to rapid rises in avalanche hazard, specifically for Thane Road.”
City officials said that state assistance could include committing additional personnel to the avalanche hazard, flying helicopter-mounted LIDAR flights to monitor the risk and potentially ordering radar systems.