High Water Threatens Alaska's Only Road North

A surge of high water moving down the Middle Fork Koyukuk River threatens to wash out stretches of the Dalton Highway — Alaska's only road link to the North Slope — as it heads toward the Interior villages of Bettles, Evansville, and Allakaket, the National Weather Service in Fairbanks warned Tuesday.

The vulnerable span runs 67 miles, between mileposts 165 and 232 around Coldfoot and Wiseman. That matters far beyond the handful of people who live there. The Dalton, originally the North Slope Haul Road, is the only road connecting Deadhorse and the Prudhoe Bay oil fields to Interior Alaska, and commercial trucks hauling fuel and supplies to the oil fields make up most of its traffic, in a near-constant year-round flow. When the Dalton closes, the Arctic's supply line closes with it — as it did in 2015, when catastrophic flooding shut the highway for 28 days and triggered two state disaster declarations.

The water came fast. Warm weekend temperatures followed by rain falling on leftover snow — a rain-on-snow event — drove rivers up across the southern Brooks Range. The Middle Fork near Wiseman peaked overnight at 13.59 feet, two feet above flood stage, and water was already running over Wiseman Road by Monday night. Headwater streams have begun dropping as the rain tapers, but the NWS expects high water to keep moving through the lower Koyukuk and North Slope rivers into Thursday, with a separate flood watch up north covering the Dalton and the Sag, Colville, and Kuparuk rivers.

No evacuations have been ordered. Tanana Chiefs Conference emergency coordinator Roxanne Sourapas has urged at-risk villages to locate boats, flotation devices, and rescue gear now and to safeguard clinics, water plants, and utilities. River forecasts are posted at the Alaska-Pacific River Forecast Center, weather.gov/aprfc.