Video Still from KTUU News, Anchorage, AK
This week some people who live on the Kenai Peninsula had a super disaster. If you think a river flooding into a neighborhood would be a disaster, imagine the same thing happening, in the middle of winter. Imagine if the river was frozen over in ice several feet thick, and all that ice breaking apart and being swept into the the side of your house, snapping trees along the way.
Then, if that wasn't bad enough, imagine what it would be like, if, after your home was flooded, it was still cold enough to freeze all that water, encasing your property, home, and vehicles in solid ice, with no chance of getting them out until the ice melted!
If it was me i wouldn't live in a place where that was ever a possibility, but some people take the risk.
Like the last flooding post, i didn't take any of these pictures, but i imagine the rest of the country isn't hearing much about this news so i thought i would put them up.
Skilak Lake, fed by the Harding Ice Field, historically floods once in a while in winter. It's frozen over and apparently some kind of ice damn forms near the mouth of it. When the damn breaks due to pressure it releases a torrent of icy water which flows into the Kenai River, the major river in the area. The surge of water breaks up the ice, but there are areas along the river that are narrow, and when the suddenly moving ice flow is choked in those areas it can cause an ice jam. The ice jam has the effect of plugging up the river and that causes the flooding. In this case the flooding was 20 feet over normal water levels. So that's something to think about when buying river property in Alaska. In fact, you should always try to find out what sorts of winter considerations you need to keep in mind when buying even even urban residential property up here. Things are just that much different in winter.
