Above-freezing temperatures were a welcome break from wintry snow and ice last week, but the three storms that hit the Kenai Peninsula one after another brought unwelcomed flooding, disrupted air traffic, damaged roads and caused at least one resident to evacuate her Anchor River home.
Photographer: McKibben Jackinsky, Homer News
Gale-force winds Sunday afternoon slam a 22.3-foot tide past a homemade breakwater protecting John and Elizaberth Chapple's Spit home and other nearby structures.
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"We were called out where one lady said she was picking up her animals and leaving," Bob Craig, administrator of the Anchor Point Emergency Service Area, said of an individual that evacuated her home because of floodwater on the Anchor River. "The fire chief took a look, called back and said she was already gone. She stayed in Homer and the Red Cross paid for her hotel."
Mike LeNorman, director of sales and marketing for Era Aviation, said adverse weather caused several flight cancellations.
"We had two on Thanksgiving Day and two on Nov. 25, due primarily to turbulence and low ceilings," LeNorman said. "This was one of those rare occasions when it was absolutely bumpy and not comfortable for folks to be on an airplane and be bumped around. We feel we did the prudent thing waiting for things to get better."
Across Kachemak Bay, the wind's strength surpassed anything Seldovia resident Sunni Hilts had experienced.
"We've lived here 37 years and I've never seen anything like it," Hilts said. "It takes a 5.6 earthquake to move this house, but this house shook and shuddered for hours."
The wind toppled some trees roots and all and snapped others in two in Seldovia. However, little damage was done to private property.
"All around town things fell within feet of houses, cars, equipment," Hilts said. "A metal roof blew off and nobody was hurt. One house, trees hit the roof and it did minor damage, but, except for somebody's smoke shed, I haven't heard of a building being damaged."
Around the southern Kenai Peninsula, melting snow and heavy rains caused rising streams to wear at borough roads. Les Mofford, the Kenai Peninsula Borough's road inspector in Homer, was awakened by a 3 a.m. call Nov. 21, alerting him to road damage. During a break in rain later that day, he dispatched crews to clear culverts and begin repairing damage, but subsequent weather systems moving into the area continued to push water across gravel road surfaces.
Glen Szymoniak, assistant superintendent of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District, also received a call from the borough's Office of Emergency Management at 3 a.m. Nov. 21, alerting him of possible flooding. He immediately passed that information to Laidlaw Transit, the district's school bus operator. Fortunately, said Dave Etzwiler of Laidlaw in Homer, bus drivers did not experience any problems getting students to or from school.
In addition to new potholes that multiplied with the rain, a section of the Sterling Highway at mile 167.5 was damaged, according to Kevin Jones of the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities in Homer.
"Repairs require a lane closure for at least the better part of (Wednesday), possibly into (today) while we're working there," Jones said of work he hopes to complete this week. "That should be the only impact to traffic. This is mainly a temporary fix for winter until we can readjust in the spring."
Unlike the 2002 floods, the city of Homer came through without any problems. Last Wednesday before the storms had ended, Public Works Manager Carey Meyer acknowledged the threat.
"We are kind of vulnerable," he said then. "We have a completely saturated town. The major flood events in the past have come in conditions like this, when everything is soaked up with water."
Although many city residents and businesses had damage with downed trees or blown-over signs, the city's infrastructure came through fine.
"We escaped without any major problems, other than we couldn't ski over the weekend," Meyer said.
The worst impact was a surge of water through the Homer sewer treatment plant. Normally, about 600,000 gallons of water a day goes through the plant. Last week's storms saw 1.2 million gallons a day go through the treatment plant a violation of the cap set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Fecal coliform counts were still within limits, he said.
Photographer: McKibben Jackinsky, Homer News
Rising water in the Anchor River pushes toward a picnic table in Anchor River State Recreation Area on Wednesday afternoon.
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"More water went through the plant than normally we'd like to see," Meyer said.
Since the city sewer lines and manholes are sealed from storm drainage, Meyer said he suspected the increase in water came from homes or businesses draining sump pumps or rain gutters into sewer lines. That's an issue the city needs to address, Meyer said.
"The big implication is as the city grows, available treatment capacity at the plant is used up by storm water," he said.
The recent series of three storms began impacting the area Nov. 16, according to Andy Dixon, hydrometeorological technician with the National Weather Service in Anchorage. Total rainfall measured 3.96 inches. While that might not sound like much, Dixon said the problem came from melting snow on the ground and at higher elevations.
"That rapidly increases the effect. That's why the rivers are so full," he said.
Flooding in the Anchor River crested at 15.9 feet at 9 a.m. Friday.
"For comparative purposes, 2002 was the highest crest ever at 19.15 feet on Oct.24," Dixon said.
The second highest recorded level in the Anchor River was 18.5 feet on Jan. 20, 1961, and the third was 16.9 feet on March 7, 1963. Friday's flooding was the fourth highest recorded.
Winds during last week's storms reached 48 miles per hour at 9 a.m. Thanksgiving morning.
"Now, it looks like you may get a shot at some rain, but nothing major like we saw," Dixon said. "Then you'll catch a break for awhile. That probably means not a whole lot of snow. It will cool off a bit but no massive cold spell anytime soon."
For Scott Walden of the borough's OEM in Soldotna, keeping apprised of storm conditions required input from peninsula residents.
"The Anchor Point Volunteer Fire Department went around looking at reports of high water they continued keeping an eye on things and calling us," Walden said. "In Seward, folks are looking at high water and DOT is looking at culverts."
Cleaning up after the storm also is a cooperative effort. The Bear Creek Fire Department near Seward pumped water from basements and crawl spaces beneath houses. The Alaska Railroad is clearing railroad trestles of debris, allowing water to flow. Borough-provided sand bags kept flooding out of some areas.
"We didn't end up with any reports of infrastructure damage. There's no reports of significant private property damage other than inconvenience," Walden said.
Walden's office has maintained almost hourly contact with the National Weather Service since early morning Nov. 21.
"It was not unusual for us to get an update from someone on the ground, say at 2 a.m., and call the weather service. That guy would jump out of bed, answer my call and take the current eyewitness information. Some of their (NWS) alerts are based on conversations we had with them," Walden said.
The flow of information went both ways, with NWS providing Walden with forecasts.
"Those guys were amazingly on target with the predictions and information they provided," he said. "They've been pretty on point so far and I believe what they say. Of course, it's not over yet. Whose to say what happens in the next week or so."
For updates on weather, visit the Web at www.arh.noaa.gov/. For information from the Kenai Peninsula Borough Office of Emergency Management, visit the Web at www.borough.kenai.ak.us/emergency/default.htm.
McKibben Jackinsky can be reached at mckibben.jackinsky@homernews.com.
Michael Armstrong can be reached at michael.armstrong@homernews.com.
