The remnants of a destroyed house sit between another house and condo buildings along Juneau’s Riverside Drive, all with eroded foundations after a record glacial outburst flood on Saturday, Aug. 5, 2023.
Trees in the Mendenhall River after the Aug. 5 glacial outburst flood caused rapid erosion of the river’s banks. “He’s normally like, calm, cool, collected John,” Christine Loverink said. “And he was sounding a little bit panicked. So I knew that things were happening fast.” Some residents were displaced from the Loverlinks’ building and the one next to it — 12 units altogether. Both had been condemned by the time the city made its announcement. Signs posted on the buildings said they were “unsafe for human occupancy.”
The crest of 14.97 feet was far beyond anything Juneau has seen before from its annual outburst floods, which started in 2011. Bill Ballard lives in a condominium building that’s further back from the bank. He spent much of the afternoon watching the rising, debris-filled waters from a deck chair at the river’s edge. “We saw a couple of decks float by, we saw deck chairs and stuff float by.” Ballard said. “Then we started seeing structural timber. And then I was like, ‘Oh, my God. That’s from houses upstream.’”