The village of Crooked Creek is having the worst flood that they can remember.


How would you prepare for this?

Thought i put this in the discussion.

How often does that happen?

I’ve known people (not in Alaska) who have been through flooding of their houses. It’s pretty terrible. Because of that, when we bought our property to build a house on I decided I would never deal with flooding. If my house floods, the world is ending.

I will not live where there is a chance I’ll get flooded.

Build on higher elevations.

Sucks for those people that looks way worse than any typical flood in a suburban area.

Almost ever year.
Some years are not bad.
They did build on higher ground.
Plus the homes are built on pad/piling and above the 100 year flood mark.

Ice dams are unpredictable . but most don’t really care,about the flooding when it is not flooding .they been living like this for hundreds of years

We had a 100 year flood in 1986.   Then again in 2013.  And then we had a 500 year flood in 2020.   We lost a couple of dams in that one.   It certainly added to the excitement.   I work on the very edge of a flood plain.  It is a 300,000 square foot facility and we had water right up to the edge of the building in 2020 but it did not go further.   There were so many roads closed in the area that driving to a point 1/4 mile from the building took over two hours and traversed the entire county.   We were in the building moving computers, electronics etc to the second floor while constantly checking the evacuation routes to ensure that we had a way out if we had to evacuate.   Most of the bridges over the rivers closed, even if the bridgest themselves weren't under water.   I assume that the police would let us cross if we were heading to high ground but it didn't come to that point.   We never lost power or telecom services.

Having had a house flooded by a 500 year flood, I would never build or buy a house that wasn’t well above any possible flooding.

Alaskan villages/villagers are stuck with where they can build.
Federal land
Big Native Corporation land
Village Corporation land
Village tribal land
Land claim act land that individuals picked.
Build able land


Most have built houses on stilts,piling,post and pad above the 100 year mark. Only way you can get insurance but even then it is hell to get in Rural AK.




Update jam has broke and moved down river.
Water levels in Crooked creek have gone down.

Move.

It's kinda of a silly question. Move yourself or the water will.

The best preparation is not living that close to the river.  The next best involves a metric frick-ton of sandbags, heavy equipment, and trash pumps.

I've seen where Jersey barriers were used for portions of a flood wall, but that was for small flooding.  This is another level, and concrete walls, levees, pumps, etc..  If the water weren't flowing, just having houses on stilts might be doable, but with a river like that, it might still wash them away if it erodes the soil deep enough.  Maybe huge, deep piers and super tall stilts like the houses on the ocean in Florida?

A solution capable of preventing flooding from this sort of thing might be more expensive than just moving, unfortunately.

Just build on the highest cliff or ridge over-looking the river. There, done.

Then one day, when the really bad generational flooding occurs on that river way, way below you, you can sit on the porch of your high-above home and watch all your neighbors’ homes floating by in the rushing, churning, swirling river.  In fact, on the roofs of some of the homes passing below you, you’ll probably see your former neighbors struggling to hold on.

Be sure to wave and wish them luck in their new location, wherever it  might be that the swollen river is taking them to.

I guess if that’s an issue for where you live and you don’t want to move anywhere else, you better have a bug out plan in place. Kind of like living in hurricane areas. Better have a bug out plan in place.

Me too.  Only flooding I deal with is a flood of property tax assessments for the view.

Read my post three posts up.
Explains the land situation.
Very rare for homes to wash away here in Alaska. Certain areas where developments has happened have had homes taken during flood.(richer areas)
Villages do move homes but land is like I posted.
Most stay put so they can take care of house and gear. The ones with bad health do travel to another higher village.


Alaska Natives have lived by water for generations.(it is where most of the food is)
Our rivers,ocean and seas are a little different than most L48 areas.

I have been to a fair share of villages back when I did construction.  I have no idea of what the land ownership was at any of them.  Some of them don't have much elevation to build on lime Galena which was an old de-commissioned air base. Ruby is up in the hills and Allakanuk is in a horrible spit at the end of the yukon with absolutely nothing.  They ki da got a raw deal from the Orthodox missionaries.  They were like halfway between their summer and winter grounds and the missionaries stopped them and convinced them of needing to stop and build a school.everything was on pads and piling all barged in.  They had to reorient the runway because in winter people would walk off the plane and straight into the yukon river and freeze/drown.  I helped build a 30million dollar school there for a village with a total student population of 50 k-12.