Old gray water, keep on rolling, Matanuska moon gonna shine its ever-loving light on me

July 23, 2012

August 15, 2012

Here's one of those "what's-different-in-the-pictures" puzzles.  The one on the left was taken July 23, the one on the right August 15.  What's going on is s Alaska's Matanuska River has been running high all summer due to the melt off from the heavy snow last winter and a pretty rainy July.  Along about 15-20 miles of it from Sutton north of Palmer to a few miles south of Palmer it has been eroding the bank at a pretty fast pace.

At least one home has been threatened near Sutton; the owner has been in the news several times trying to save as much as he can.

August 31

This place is south of Palmer between town and where I live.  I was driving by July 23 when I saw emergency vehicles and a group of people putting sandbags in the yard to protect the buildings.  Later the owner put in rock rip-rap apparently hoping to make the protection more permanent.  Unfortunately you can't stop the river undercutting the bank without a major operation.  The owner discovered there was a problem this morning when he saw that his septic tank was missing.  Good grief,  were there no warnings or attempts to save things before that?  Septic tanks are not light, it took some time for that thing to get flushed out.

Of course the house is tipping,  but look at all the forest that had already disappeared.  I am hoping the fuel tank was taken out of there before it could go too.  That's a 300-gallon tank and if it was full of fuel oil what a mess it would make of a salmon stream.

One thing, you have to give credit to Alaska builders. That building has to be hell for stout, hanging over a cliff like that without breaking up.  How many times have we seen on the news houses caught in landslides and breaking apart.  Given how strong it looks, a friend and I were wondering why someone isn't trying to save it.  There could be way,  we were thinking huge straps like on marine travel lifts and pulled by a sizeable bulldozer, but there may be other ways too.  I will keep an eye on it and update if anything new happens.

A BIT OF AN UPDATE:  The fuel tank was found on a gravel bar in the river.  The young couple who own the house haven't the money for any kind of recovery of the building.  Insurance won't pay until it is damaged.  No help from government.  Some worry that if it remains intact when it falls into the river, there are two road bridges and a railroad bridge downstream that it could damage.  There should be some Alaska type of help for them but it doesn't look like that's going to happen.

Another update.