Flooded Alaska Town

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-galena-alaska-flood-20130528,0,2891601.story

A massive ice jam on the Yukon River sent a flood of water into Galena, Alaska, inundating most of the town and forcing the evacuation of nearly the entire population.

“I think the majority of the folks have been evacuated from the village,” Dave Streubel, National Weather Service hydrologist, told the Los Angeles Times on Tuesday afternoon as floodwaters approached the last lifeline to the isolated village -- the airport.

Water was backed up 40 to 50 miles behind the large ice jam at a sharp bend in the river known as Bishop Point, 15 miles downriver from Galena, and most of the town was flooded, Streubel said.

“Pretty much the entire village is under water, except for an area around the old Air Force runway, which the Air Force had built a dike around, and the water is up to 6 inches [from] going over the dike and flooding the runway,” he said.

“We had a very cold spring, and in fact we even had snow in that part of the state as of eight days ago. And now in the past four or five days, they’re up close to 70 and 80 degrees. So all that snowmelt has been entering the Yukon River, and it’s just made it that much worse,” Streubel said. 

Jeremy Zidek, spokesman for the state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said National Guard troops were working with para-rescue crews aboard two large cargo planes and two helicopters to help evacuate those who had earlier declined to leave.

“A lot of Alaskans don’t want to leave. They’d rather just stay and endure it, and make do,” Zidek said. “So there were some folks that didn’t want to evacuate before, and now they do.”