Ice dam at Alaska's Mendenhall Glacier releases floodwater toward downstream homes
Officials in recent days have been warning people in the flood zone to be ready to evacuate. On Tuesday morning they confirmed water had started escaping the ice dam and flowing downstream, with flooding expected late Tuesday into Wednesday.
Flooding from the basin has become an annual concern, and in recent years has swept away houses and swamped hundreds of homes.
The Mendenhall Glacier — a thinning, retreating glacier that is a major tourist attraction in southeast Alaska — acts as a dam for Suicide Basin, which fills each spring and summer with rainwater and snowmelt. The basin itself was left behind when a smaller glacier nearby retreated.
When the water in the basin builds up enough pressure, it forces its way under or around the ice dam, entering Mendenhall Lake and eventually the Mendenhall River. Before the basin reached the limit of its capacity and began overtopping over the weekend, the water level was rising rapidly — as much as 4 feet (1.22 meters) per day during especially sunny or rainy days, according to the National Weather Service.
The threat of so-called glacier outburst flooding has troubled parts of Juneau since 2011. In some years, there has been limited flooding of streets or properties near the lake or river.
But 2023 and 2024 marked successive years of record flooding, with the river last August cresting at 15.99 feet (4.9 meters), about 1 foot (0.3 meters) over the prior record set a year earlier, and flooding extending farther into the Mendenhall Valley.
Last year, nearly 300 residences were damaged.
A large outburst can release up to 15 billion gallons of water, according to the University of Alaska Southeast and Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center. That's the equivalent of nearly 23,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. During last year's flood, the flow rate in the rushing Mendenhall River was about half that of Niagara Falls, the researchers say.
City officials responded to concerns from property owners this year by working with state, federal and tribal entities to install a temporary levee along roughly 2.5 miles of riverbank in an attempt to guard against widespread flooding. The installation of about 10,000, four-foot (1.2-meter) tall barriers is intended to protect more than 460 properties from flood levels similar to last year, said Nate Rumsey, deputy director with the city's engineering and public works department.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is at the start of what's expected to be a yearslong process of studying conditions in the region and examining options for a more permanent solution. The timeline has angered some residents, who say it's unreasonable.
Outburst floods are expected to continue as long as the Mendenhall Glacier acts as an ice dam to seal off the basin, which could span another 25 to 60 years, according to the university and science center researchers.
___
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BreakingNews.ie
an hour ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Thunderstorm warning issued for three counties
Met Éireann has issued a status yellow thunderstorm warning for Cork, Kerry and Limerick. Forecasters say the storms are likely in some parts on Monday. Advertisement The agency warned that potential impacts include lightning damage, power outages, localised flooding and difficult travelling conditions. The warning applies between 9am and 6pm on Monday. Met Éireann said the weather in Munster will begin dry with sunny spells but cloudier in the southwest. It said showers will develop later in the morning and merge into longer spells of rain for a time with some heavy falls and thunderstorms likely, especially over the south and southwest. Advertisement Highest temperatures in the region on Monday are expected to fall within 19 to 23 degrees in light to moderate easterly breezes. ⚠️Status Yellow Thunderstorm Warning issued⚠️ Thunderstorms likely in some parts on Monday • Lightning damage🌩️ • Power outages possible⚡️ • Localised flooding🌊 • Difficult travelling conditions🚗🚲🚶 Areas: Cork, Kerry & Limerick Ireland Indian community celebrates independence day in Du... Read More Valid: 9am to 6pm Monday 18th August — Met Éireann (@MetEireann) August 17, 2025
BreakingNews.ie
an hour ago
- BreakingNews.ie
Pakistan defends flood response after more than 270 people killed
Rescuers recovered dozens more bodies from the rubble of collapsed homes in a north-western district of Pakistan, bringing the death toll to at least 274, as authorities defended their response to the flooding. Heavy rains and flooding also killed dozens of people in neighbouring Kashmir. Advertisement Mohammad Suhail, a spokesman for Pakistan's emergency service, said 54 bodies were found in Buner, a mountainous area in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where torrential rains and cloudbursts triggered massive flooding on Friday. Villagers collect items from the rubble of their partially damaged home in Pir Baba, an area of Buner district, in the north-west of Pakistan (Muhammad Sajjad/AP) Mr Suhail said villagers remained missing, and search efforts were focused on areas where homes were flattened by torrents of water that swept down from the mountains, carrying boulders that smashed into houses like explosions. Authorities have warned of more deluges and possible landslides between now and Tuesday, urging local administrations to remain on alert. Higher-than-normal monsoon rains have lashed the country since June 26 and killed more than 600. In India-administered Kashmir, located across Pakistan's north-eastern border, rains triggered more flash floods in two villages in the Kathua district, killing seven people, officials said on Sunday. Advertisement Rescuers in Chositi village are still looking for dozens of missing people after the area was hit by flash floods last week during an annual Hindu pilgrimage. At least 60 people were killed, and some 150 injured. More than 300 others were rescued. Authorities have warned of more deluges and possible landslides (Muhammad Sajjad/AP) Residents in Buner have accused officials of failing to warn them to evacuate after torrential rain and cloudbursts triggered deadly flooding and landslides. There was no warning broadcast from mosque loudspeakers, a traditional method in remote areas. The government said that while an early warning system was in place, the sudden downpour in Buner was so intense that the deluge struck before residents could be alerted. Lieutenant General Inam Haider, chairman of the national disaster management authority, told a hastily convened news conference in Islamabad that Pakistan was experiencing shifting weather patterns because of climate change. Advertisement Since the monsoon season began in June, Pakistan has already received 50% more rainfall than in the same period last year, he said. He warned that more intense weather could follow, with heavy rains forecast to continue this month. Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate-induced disasters (Muhammad Sajjad/AP) Some countries have reached out to Islamabad offering help, but Lt Gen Haider said Pakistan had sufficient resources and did not require foreign assistance at this time. Asfandyar Khan Khattak, director-general of the provincial disaster management authority, said there was 'no forecasting system anywhere in the world' that could predict the exact time and location of a cloudburst, a sudden and intense downpour. Advertisement Idrees Mahsud, a disaster management official, said Pakistan's early warning system used satellite imagery and meteorological data to send alerts to local authorities. These were shared through the media and community leaders. An emergency services spokesman in Buner, Mohammad Sohail, said more than half the damaged roads in the district had reopened by Sunday, allowing vehicles and heavy machinery to reach cut-off villages. Crews were clearing piles of rocks and mud dumped by the floods. They were still using heavy machinery to remove the rubble of collapsed homes after families reported that some of their relatives were missing. Pakistan is highly vulnerable to climate-induced disasters. Advertisement Pakistan suffers regular flash floods and landslides during the monsoon season (Muhammad Sajjad/AP) In 2022, a record-breaking monsoon killed nearly 1,700 people and destroyed millions of homes. The country also suffers regular flash floods and landslides during the monsoon season, which runs from June to September, particularly in the rugged north-west of the country, where villages are often perched on steep slopes and riverbanks. Experts say climate change is intensifying the frequency and severity of such extreme weather events in South Asia. Khalid Khan, a weather expert, said Pakistan produced less than 1% of planet-warming emissions but faced heat waves, heavy rains, glacial outburst floods and now cloudbursts, underscoring how climate change was devastating communities within hours.
The Guardian
6 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Pray for rain': wildfires in Canada are now burning where they never used to
Road closures, evacuations, travel chaos and stern warnings from officials have all become fixtures of Canada's wildfire season. But as the country goes through its second-worst burn on record, the blazes come with a twist: few are coming from the western provinces, the traditional centre of destruction. Instead, the worst of the fires have been concentrated in the prairie provinces and the Atlantic region, with bone-dry conditions upending how Canada responds to a threat which is only likely to grow as the climate warms. Experts say the shift serves as a stark reminder that the risk of disaster is present across the thickly forested nation. In recent weeks, tens of thousands of people in communities across the country have been evacuated due to the wildfires. Saskatchewan and Manitoba have been the worst hit, home to more than 60% of the volume burned in Canada. But the fires have also seized strained resources in Atlantic Canada, where officials in Newfoundland and Labrador are struggling to battle out of control blazes. In response to the crisis, Newfoundland premier John Hogan said on Wednesday morning he would temporarily ban off-road vehicles in forested areas because the province 'simply cannot afford any further risks, given the number of out-of-control wildfires we have'. The ban follows a similar move by Nova Scotia, where a 15 hectare (37 acre) out-of-control fire is burning outside the provincial capital of Halifax. In addition to barring vehicles in wooded areas, Nova Scotia officials also shut down hiking, camping and fishing in forests: a decision reflecting the troubling fact that nearly all fires in the province are started by humans. 'Conditions are really dry, there's no rain in sight, the risk is extremely high in Nova Scotia,' the province's premier Tim Houston told reporters. 'I'm happy to make sure that we're doing everything we can to protect people, to protect property and try to just get through this fire season and really just pray for rain.' Fires have even erupted in Ontario's Kawartha Lakes region, a collection of rural communities less than 100 miles (161km) north of Toronto that are a popular summer destination for residents of Canada's largest city. For a country of sprawling landmass, fires have long been a common feature of the hot spring, summer and fall. But for the last century, a mix of geography, climate and industry meant that the biggest and hottest fires – and the vast majority of destruction – have been concentrated in Canada's western provinces. That changed in 2023 when Canada experienced its worst-ever fire season and the thick haze of smoke blanketed the US. 'We had fire everywhere. We had evacuations everywhere. We had smoke at a scale that was remarkable. And so for the first time, we had a different thought about wildfires as a country. With all of the smoke, it became a global conversation. This year is repeating all of that,' said Paul Kovacs, the executive director of the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction at Western University. 'This is a national issue. This can show up anywhere.' Kovacs, whose organization focuses largely on preventing structural loss, said more buildings have been destroyed this year compared with 2023, and warned that a majority of the residents of the most fire-prone parts of the country, like British Columbia and Alberta, have not yet taken steps to protect or 'harden' their homes from fire risk. He hopes that a broader national recognition of fire risk, however, spurs people in other parts of the country to reassess how vulnerable their home or business might be to a fast-moving blaze. 'That's the behavioural change we're hoping to see next because there will be many years of fires to come. The size of the burned area will not go back to where things were 25 years ago. This is just our new reality and we need to be prepared. We change in mindset and a recognition that this can, and probably will, happen in so many parts of our country.' Already, nearly 7.5m hectares (18.5m acres) have burned across Canada in 2025, far above the 10-year average. Despite the national threat, there is no 'one-size-fits-all' approach to reducing risk, said Jen Baron, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of British Columbia's Centre for Wildfire Coexistence. 'British Columbia and Alberta have long been the poster children for this wildfire problem for a long time, but other regions are beginning to experience some of those same challenges. This speaks to the pervasiveness of climate change: even if a location was relatively low fire risk in the past, with the extended droughts that we're seeing, that's no longer the case now and into the future,' she said. 'Even though some parts of the country are having a wet year on average, things across the board are still warmer and drier than they were in the past,' she said. That uncertainty has prompted a multimillion dollar funding effort from the federal government to study risk and adaptation because 'there are very few parts of Canada that would be totally protected from wildfire', said Baron. With an international focus on wildfires, experts like Baron hope the recent years of immense blazes and choking smoke can spur a response that acknowledges the legacy of the forestry industry practices, urban encroachment into the wilderness and the Indigenous stewardship of forests. 'We're just starting to catch up to the scale of the problem. Wildfire is a natural ecological process, but it's become increasingly challenging to manage with changing climatic conditions.' Baron said the 'mild' nature of this year's western fire season also provides a glimpse into the country's future. 'Instead of one big fire year every 15 or 20 years, every year will be big in some part of the country,' she said 'We really don't know exactly how climate change is going to continue. It doesn't drive things in linear ways. And we can't predict where there's going to be a drought next year. But it will be somewhere.'
