HESCO barrier repair was a week from done, Juneau committee told

Juneau's HESCO flood barriers were within a week of completed repair and expansion when the city's Local Emergency Planning Committee last met, Assembly member Nano Brooks told the committee July 8. Brooks said the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly "continues to work on an enduring solution for the GLOF," the glacial lake outburst flood that has driven the barrier work.

The committee has since canceled its Aug. 12 meeting. It is not scheduled to meet again until Sept. 9 at noon at the Marie Drake Building, according to the agenda posted for the canceled session.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said later in July that Phase 2 of the temporary flood defenses along the Mendenhall River was complete. Nearly 1,900 Mendenhall Valley homes are under an evacuation advisory, Alaska News previously reported.

The July 8 meeting also produced conflicting assumptions about the Mendenhall River bridges. Mike Pierson asked the committee about potential bridge closures during a glacial outburst flood. Ryan O'Shaughnessy said both bridges fall under state Department of Transportation jurisdiction and confirmed that both would not be closed. He said there was no concern with the bridges themselves, only with the approaches to them. Jake Thayer said Bartlett Regional Hospital was assuming for planning purposes that bridges would be shut down for safety reasons.

The difference matters because the decision to close either bridge rests with state transportation officials. The hospital is building its response around the more conservative assumption that access across the river could be lost. It was scheduled to run a soft evacuation to its emergency operations center on July 9, and it planned further coordination meetings with city emergency management and Capital City Fire/Rescue so everyone understood its plan.