Video Clips
Quoted moments from Alaska public meetings, hearings, and press conferences.
Clips from National Weather ServiceClear
0:36
“We will begin closing those gaps on July— Monday, July 20th, and progressively work towards closing those right up towards the end, right up towards the release”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:09
“last year's, during last year's event, it was, it was just, just over 1,000 homes that were advised for evacuation.”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:29
“More of the southern part of the valley is included in the evacuation advisory, and it's also a little bit, a little bit wider around the river.”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:36
John Bohan
“The breach locations that were chosen are the potential high-impact areas. And so tree strikes and direct, you know, even though we fortified these areas, the direct impacts at the 90-degree corners just effectively to, you know, to prepare for the worst-case scenario. As Ryan said, these are sandbags, they are temporary measures.”Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:27
John Bohan
“as we saw last year, fortunately above the waterline, but a tree completely blew up the barriers behind the Field House very quickly, very easily. So we do need to be prepared for those events. So be careful. And that's also why we're requesting evacuation because they are temporary and we don't know what, you know, we don't know what force might crack one open.”Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:43
“The good news, moving on to the HESCO and flood barrier work, is that it is complete. You will see crews still working on cleanup and final details, but the barriers are sealed and ready to go, with the exception of the pedestrian and the maintenance accesses. Those were left open intentionally so that people can access trails and maintenance crews can continue to get through them”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:20
Ryan O'Shaughnessy
“the CBJ is currently operating under an emergency declaration, and the intent and the purpose of that is to utilize resources that wouldn't be available to us as a local government ordinarily.”Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
1:07
“public safety is number one, and we definitely think the evacuation is important, that there's a lot of flood barriers out in place, but if something were to happen, it would be very short notice on a breach and a flash flood.”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:24
“It is really important to heed the evacuation advisory. Life safety is our number one priority, and we've we really want to stress for folks to evacuate during this event. We have a very high level of confidence in the HESCO barriers, but this is a dynamic event. It's a natural disaster, and we can't predict every element of it.”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:53
“without them, we would not have— we would have 2 pumps in Juneau capable of pumping water from behind the Hesco flood barriers. So they have basically stripped all of their resources from the Lower 48, and also working on acquiring additional pumps outside of what their normal resources are to provide us the number of pumps we need to work to pump behind the HESCOs”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:13
Ryan O'Shaughnessy
“the entire system is somewhat fragile to tree strikes and things like that. So we really want to encourage folks to evacuate. For that worst-case scenario.”Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:27
Ryan O'Shaughnessy
“we have a tremendous amount of confidence in the HESCO system. We saw it perform relatively well last year and we're very confident for this year, but the entire system is fragile. And that's really why we want everyone in the evacuation area to heed that advisory and to evacuate. These are resilient structures. We do have a little bit of testing with them, but they are essentially sandbags, right?”Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:29
Aaron Jacobs
“this year, in conjunction with the USGS, we were able to improve our monitoring so we have more redundant information. And one of that more redundant information is a camera that looks over the overflow channel. So from the monitoring page, if you go to latest images, and now you will see this overflow channel to the right. And so this is a new camera for us so we can see when water is starting to go over this overflow channel.”Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:10
“absent the Governor compelling an evacuation for the Mendenhall Valley, the evacuation notice will remain an advisory.”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:24
“this year we're advising evacuation for just over 1,900”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
1:10
Aaron Jacobs
“we are kind of with the volume estimate, we're going to be very close to the same volume as last year, just due to the conditions of the lower end of the overflow channel to less icebergs in the basin, and then the lateral expansion of the basin. So we're going to see a very similar volume estimate that we're anticipating, maybe a little bit of an increase, but very similar to last year. And so we are also anticipating a flood if it releases at a full basin capacity, something very similar to last year, to maybe a little bit lower, but still a major flooding event.”Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:34
Ryan O'Shaughnessy
“Once the state resources you know, primarily the drone monitoring and public assistance support and those kinds of things come into play, the CBJ will be requesting that the Governor also declare a state disaster. So that is, we're working really closely with the SEOC to move that process along, and at this point, all indications that we've received are that the state will very seriously consider a pre-event disaster declaration again.”Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:24
“we will start deploying pumps later next week. You will see people, our city crews as well as our contractors, working on setting up the pumps, the piping, and the connections to the HESCO barriers to pump across the top of the barriers to get the water back into the river.”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:35
“last year we strictly used inundation maps to guide evacuation notice,. And this year we've broadened our perspective a little bit. We saw, we did see ponding last year behind some of the HESCO barriers and to take into account where roads may become blocked and access may be limited by first responders or those evacuating, we've broadened our criteria for the evacuation area a little bit.”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026
0:51
“those were designed to the same capacity to which the HESCO barriers are built, so 63,500. Also, as a function of creating the maps, we also overlaid, we took a no HESCO model, and so what would be inundated without the HESCOs. We also looked at several different breach points and tried to identify where the worst or most impactful breach locations would be and overlaid those things so that we made sure that we encompassed any area that could be impacted.”
Juneau: July 9, 2026 CBJ Media Availability · Jul 9, 2026