The Kenai Peninsula is mostly in the clear following a flood watch on Friday and Saturday. But the borough is still keeping an eye on certain flood-prone areas, and the state Department of Transportation said some of its roads experienced flood incidents.
Last week, the National Weather Service’s Anchorage office issued a flood watch for most of Southcentral, from Friday afternoon to Saturday. The western Kenai Peninsula was expected to get about an inch of rain.
“The Seward-Bear Creek-Lowell Point area was monitored as a result of potential flooding due to the weekend rainfall, as well as what's projected through this Wednesday,” said the borough’s emergency manager, Brenda Ahlberg
She said the borough kept an eye on that East Peninsula area, but creeks did their job and there hasn’t been any flooding.
“And that’s largely due to the work that was done over the last month and a half when we were able to get in and remove sediment from those creek beds,” she said.
Ahlberg said the annual project of cleaning out creeks is intended for moments like these.
She said the borough has also been keeping an eye on the Kalifornsky Beach area, where flooding has long been an issue, and residents have been outspoken and active about finding a solution. But so far, she said, that area is fine. She said a lull in between major rain storms allowed water to disperse less disastrously.
“We’ll continue to monitor both of those locations, on the east side as well as K-Beach. And honestly, across the entire borough,” she said. “We don’t want to dismiss some of the other areas that may end up, as a result of the rain, with some impacts. And we are in an unusual high rain year.”
One culvert in the K-Beach area, maintained by DOT, has been a matter of concern due to degrading infrastructure. But DOT spokesperson Justin Shelby said it wasn’t substantially affected by the water this weekend in a way that encroached on the road, although some material did wash away. He said DOT is planning to take action soon on fixing that culvert.
However, on the southern peninsula, one DOT-maintained road did see substantial flood impacts on Saturday morning.
“On Saturday we got informed by Homer PD that there was water on East End Road at about mile 3.6. So our crews mobilized to clear the road,” Shelby said. “While that was happening, we got another report from Homer PD about a mudslide at mile 6.5 on East End Road.”
Shelby said DOT was able to have East End road cleared and open by around 10 a.m., and did another assessment on Sunday to confirm that the road was clear and safe.
Ahlberg said she didn’t hear any flooding reports from across Kachemak Bay, or in Tyonek across Cook Inlet. Rain is expected to continue through Friday.
