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View Drive residents stay to protect homes from upcoming flood
Updated: Aug 14
‘The community members just want to be heard,’ Sen. Murkowski says after neighborhood visit
By Jasz Garrett
Juneau Independent
As an alarm sounded over phones Tuesday to signal the release of Suicide Basin, residents in the Mendenhall Valley prepared in different ways. One neighborhood prepared for the worst.
The residents of more than 1,900 homes in the city’s evacuation zone were encouraged by officials to leave by Wednesday afternoon. An emergency shelter operated by the American Red Cross opened at the Floyd Dryden Gymnasium Tuesday evening.
“None of this is worth betting your life,” said Ryan O’Shaughnessy, the city’s emergency programs manager.
Mandy and Anthony Mallott said most of their View Drive neighbors aren’t evacuating.
“We are staying because it’s our only option of protecting our property presented to us,” Anthony Mallott said. He explained they are managing a new industrial pump system and monitoring a HESCO barrier they personally installed.
He said he looked forward to having all day Wednesday to keep prepping. The Back Loop Bridge closed at 8 p.m. Access will remain open to River Road and View Drive for local traffic, according to the City and Borough of Juneau.
Mallott said the HESCO levee wrapped around their property worked last year.
“Our fingers are crossed that the barrier holds (again),” he said. “The barrier held last time. We had seepage — that’s why we have that sump placed right there. It just built up along the front of the property and it was two to three inches.”
He said he felt good ahead of the coming flood while they were doing final cleanup on Tuesday. Mallott added they also had sandbags.
Mandy Mallott looked toward the Mendenhall River over HESCO barriers stacked one gabion basket high.
“It was so powerful that it was lifting up our asphalt,” she said, recalling the force of the 2023 and 2024 floods.
Last year, the Mallotts were part of a three-home engineering and modeling effort to protect the end of View Drive.
“Everyone’s just trying to support each other the best we can,” Mandy Mallott said.
Next door, Don Habeger was preparing his home for this year’s flood. Last year, with the help of neighbors, he built a rock berm surrounding their residences. He has eight pumps and is planning to stay home again this year. He said he will evacuate if it looks like water will overtop the berm.
“If the prediction is correct, that we're 16.6 (feet) — that is the same level we saw last year — we still have what I'll call freeboard, and the water is not coming over the berm,” he said. “Therefore, we'll do what we can to help protect essentially the hole in the ground which is where our home is now.”
He said there are many successes to celebrate along with the stress the flood brings through the neighborhood effort.
“They (the Mallots) were successful in keeping it out of their home, and we were not,” Habeger said. “We had infilling and we just did not have the pumping capacity at that time to stay ahead of it. We've learned our lesson, and we have lots of pumps this year.”
He said he plans to stay up all night and maintain situational awareness.
“If we’re going to top the berm, the street is already flooded. So I’ve got my roof, of course, but I also have a life raft, life preservers — all the safety things that probably won't escape the area, but I should be able to at least stay above the water,” Habeger said.
Up the street, Kim Peterson has her own escape plan to higher ground.
She expressed interest in a federal buyout program offered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service and the city, but an official offer won’t be ready until after this year’s flood.
“We’re just doing everything we can,” she said. “I feel that we've done everything we can to protect our house this year. I've also had all those appraisals. I feel like, for what it's worth, they're following through as well as they can with all the unknowns.”
She is staying home to manage her two generators that power pumps downstairs. But Peterson said she won’t stay in the house too long and will stay in a shed up high on her property, which she believes will be safe up to a 20-foot flood level.
“I know they don’t want us to, but we have to. We have to stay here to start our generators,” Peterson said. “Like, if we leave, there will be no one. We can't get back in to start them. I can't leave generators running unattended. We’re completely safe up there.”
She has her propane and heat pump up the same hill as the stilted small shack, and said she has secured her hazardous waste. Peterson said she plans to move her cars and evacuate her two dogs. She said she has a kayak if she does need to leave.
“That’s the only way I can save my house if I stay here,” Peterson said, adding it’s worth the risk to her and many of her neighbors.
On Tuesday evening, she had already lifted belongings up high and built a protective sandbag “fort” outside her house. She said it was helpful that the city loaded and unloaded sandbags this year. Peterson added she has pumps to keep water out of the garage and prevent it from draining into the crawlspace.
Peterson said the sunny weather eased her mind. Last year’s outburst began following an atmospheric river, which accounted for about half the reason the 2025 flood broke a record with the Mendenhall River cresting at 16.65 feet, according to National Weather Service Juneau.
“Every year it kind of surprises us, and it acts a little different every year,” Peterson said, clarifying that while she feels reassured, she knows there are variable factors.
The Weather Service on Wednesday afternoon updated its crest forecast to between 8 a.m. and noon on Thursday, three hours later than previously predicted. As of Wednesday evening the Mendenhall River is expected to crest at 16.4 feet Thursday, according to Britton Musall, a National Weather Service Juneau meteorologist.
Peterson said she feels optimistic because of the recent promise for a future mid- or long-term solution and also trusts in the weather service’s predictions.
“I'm pretty encouraged with what I've heard from all sorts of the people, the Corps, Tlingit and Haida, the city,” she said. “I think they finally realized that this isn’t going away.”
Higher up the street, Logan Shaul said the two people renting his home planned to evacuate by Wednesday. He said his house hasn’t been flooded in the past, but he was lining it with several pallets’ worth of sandbags and protective wrap just in case. He picked up a last truckful of sandbags Monday night and thanked the city for their support.
Shaul said while a preparation process gets refined, it doesn’t become easier as the years pass by because each flood is a little different.
“It’s hard to say because it's changed so much over the last few years. I'm hopeful that it's not terrible, just with how the river is right now. But I don’t know,” he said. “They piled up a bunch of rocks choking off the bridge down here, so the water’s not going to leave this neighborhood nearly as quickly.”
He said his household has left every year the flood’s occurred to be on the safe side. Shaul moved into the neighborhood in 2022. He said he made sure his tenants are aware they have to leave during the flood before moving in.
“Just waiting for the next 48 hours to be over and see what happens,” Shaul said. “I just feel terrible for all the neighbors who actually get flooded. It’s pretty sad they have to deal with that every year.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, met with View Drive residents before flying over Suicide Basin in a helicopter. During a press briefing after the helicopter ride, she said she walked around the Mallots’ barriers and saw the community effort at the end of the street.
“It was important for me to hear some of the concerns from the neighbors there, and I've shared with Director (José) Sánchez here that the community members just want to be heard,” Murkowski said. “If there's information the Corps has that could be helpful to them, that's helpful sharing. If there are some interesting lessons learned because of what they have done — it's a partnership here.”
She said she recognized the recurring annual flood causes anxiety, stress and trauma.
Mandy Mallott, who was still finalizing flood preparations Wednesday, said the senator’s visit gave her hope there could be a solution for View Drive and the rest of Juneau.
• Contact Jasz Garrett at jasz@juneauindependent.com or (907) 723-9356.
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