NOTN- Juneau residents had the opportunity to learn more about preparing for this year’s glacial lake outburst flood at a community open house last night.
The City and Borough of Juneau, along with emergency response partners, hosted the event at Thunder Mountain Middle School. Representatives from local, state and federal agencies were on hand to answer questions about flood preparedness, response efforts, volunteer opportunities and available resources.
“We’re grateful for our partners and everyone who came out.” Said CBJ Emergency Programs Manager Ryan O’Shaughnessy, “I think the message that I’d like to share with everyone is that it’s never too early to start preparing for these kinds of events. Suicide Basin, the last several years has become totally full before its release. It’s important to remember that we can go from ready to go and totally skip a step at any point, so we’d like to encourage folks to have a plan, have a go bag, and know what their emergency response plan looks like for themselves.”
Participating organizations included Tlingit and Haida, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the National Weather Service, the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, the American Red Cross and the University of Alaska Southeast.
“We’ll have more events on July 11th over at the Diamond Park Field House, that’ll be from 11 to 3, and we’ll be doing community training on how to fill sandbags, how to stack your sandbags, and we’ll also be working with some community partners to distribute and pass out filled sandbags for folks that might need that level of assistance.” O’Shaughnessy said, “We’ll have more sandbag filling opportunities on the 18th and 25th, but we’re really looking forward to that July 11th meeting where people can hear from more experts, and also get those sandbag resources.”
Residents who could not attend can find more information online, by email, or through the city’s ongoing flood preparedness updates found at #ReportfromtheRiver.
