Alaska Wilderness Mom

If you just finished reading my blog post, “Spring break up- Part I”, you’ll be wondering what happened with the flood! Well, let me tell you, it was a scary thing to watch the river ice jam up by McGrath on May 10th and then the water level in the river rose and rose and rose. And then the water came for us.

With nowhere else to go, it seeped over the riverbanks and began creeping closer and closer to houses, buildings, and properties in downtown McGrath. At times the seeping and creeping was more like gushing and flowing rivers around McGrath.

On the evening of May 10th, we cruised around town watching a small ice jam that sent water temporarily coming up towards the runway and aircraft parking. A fellow pilot friend of ours drove up to us and yelled, “Come on…….the planes!”. We raced to the airport to find water steadily rising and approaching Josh’s state plane, which he uses for wildlife surveys of moose, bears, bison and musk ox. He and others jumped into their airplanes and taxied them to an area of higher ground on the runway ramp. Fifteen minutes later, the ice jam pushed through, water levels went down, and we went to bed that night thinking the worst was over.

Next morning, I awoke and turned on my phone. It started dinging like crazy and as I read my first text, it said “Water is pouring into your office yard.” I texted back, “Oh no, is the river flooding?” and the answer came back, “Yes”. The rest of the day was a blur of evacuating families from their homes, saving what we could from water damage, tying up fuel tanks and everything else so it wouldn’t float off. It was an exhausting day. For all of you out there that have contended with flooding and water damage, you know the story. You do what you can, save what you can and then like a captain of a ship that is going down, you eventually say to yourself, “I’ve done everything I’m able to”. Nature takes over and you are completely at the mercy of forces that are beyond human control.

These aerial photos below show flooding around McGrath. They were taken about seven hours before the jam broke. In those seven hours, flooding got a lot worse.

Josh and I flew the Cub during the day to catch a glimpse of the ice jam and flooding and to assess the extent of flooding for safety. An aerial view of the ice jam proved unimpressive. Since the flooding was so bad, we assumed a lengthy ice flow was the probable cause. However, only about three to four river miles had ice-above and below the jam was open water mainly free from ice.

I was also expecting to see a massive push and buildup of ice, but a tiny jam up was all it took to stop these thundering boulders of frozen water on the Kuskokwim River. Little wee Sand Island was the troublemaker. As shown below the jam up occurred on the upriver side of the island which held all that pressure from tons and tons of ice!

What really was stunning while flying and viewing the flood, was how many thousands of acres of land were flooded upriver from the jam. Mile after river mile above McGrath was inundated with water. This gave me pause. It also gave me one horrific thought……an eerie amount of mosquito habitat being created! Trust me, we do not need any more. It is shaping up to look like a bad, bad mosquito year.

After a day and a half of the river coming up and up, the ice jam finally broke. Ice began flowing in sections downriver and eventually the ice flow pushed its way past McGrath and continued downriver. Boulders of ice piled up beyond the banks and on roads and surrounding land areas. We all sighed with relief.

Glistening arrays of ice…….clear, frosty, dirt filled, rotted, soft, hard, clamoring, quiet, dripping, slush.

My favorite ice boulder…reminds me of Stonehenge..

Like a big plug being pulled from a bathtub, water almost immediately began going down in some areas of town. The aftermath included washed out roads, belongings washed away, flooded houses, yards, immersed vehicles, fine silt everywhere, winters wood gone and drifted off. Water pumps were a hot commodity along with fans, heaters and dehumidifiers to dry out homes.

Yet among it all McGrath residents kept their sense of humor, like this couple’s mock escape plan……….equipped with tote seats! The community successfully weathered the flood. Nobody was seriously hurt, no one was evacuated from McGrath. Some families evacuated their homes but were able to return a few days later once water levels had receded, and power could be safely restored.

Other areas weren’t so lucky, and water remained in place. A few weeks later, water persists. Frozen ground is slowly thawing, and water is absorbing more and more into the land, but is it too late to keep the mosquitos at bay? I’m afraid not.

As I write this blog post, they have hatched out and are ferocious! More on this Alaska terror in another upcoming blog post. I need to go. I have to put on more bug spray.