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Discover the heartbeat of Juneau's cultural and community landscape with 'Capital Chat.' This series explores the vibrant world of the community, arts, and dynamic cultural and social events happening in Alaska's Capital City. Tune in to 'Capital Chat' for your essential guide to the pulse of our community, where every story is an adventure and every voice matters.
And now Capital Chat on KINY, where we connect you with Juneau and Southeast Alaska's community organizations only on KINY.
Speaker 2:Joining me is Sunny and Travis. Sunny is the public information manager for DOT, and Travis is the incident commander. Sunny, good to see you.
Speaker 3:Nice to see you, Cliff.
Speaker 2:And, Travis, welcome. Good to see you as well.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Thank
Speaker 2:you. So a lot of work getting ready for the glacier outburst flood coming up. You guys are responsible for the, the bridges. Who wants to give me an update on where we are and, what folks have to know? And and and, by the way, it's it's it's weird.
Speaker 2:I feel like I have television stars in here because I've seen you guys do the social media stuff, of which we're playing here on the radio station, but it's it's it's surreal now to have you in our studio. So nice job on the social media stuff.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Thanks for welcoming us to the studio too. It's an awesome place, and we appreciate all the efforts you guys are doing to get this information out to the public ahead of the flood.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Okay. So, everybody remembers what happened last year. We we know the progress and the work that's been done, on the Hesco barriers this year. Where where are we, and what do, what do people need to know about this season?
Speaker 4:So DOT's primary focus during the gloff is gonna be the roads and bridges. And so, much like last year, we're gonna close the bridge that's on back loop. When the gauge level on the Mendenhall Lake hits 12 feet or at 08:30 at night if it's predicted to go over 12 feet, overnight. And so we just wanna make sure that all the traveling public's aware that that bridge is gonna be closed to all vehicles and pedestrian traffic during the flood event. And that's mainly driven by safety.
Speaker 4:Folks will remember last year, during the flood, we had some damage to an approach. It totally washed the approach out on the east side of the bridge. And so for everyone's safety, we're gonna go ahead and close that bridge once it hits 12 feet, and we'll open it back up once the floodwater goes back down to 12 feet and our engineers have had a chance to go and inspect the bridge to make sure everything's okay.
Speaker 2:I know the, I think it was yesterday they announced that, or the prediction seems to be that the basin is set to fill around the middle of the month, a little later than than originally predicted. Is that is that accurate?
Speaker 4:Yeah. My understanding is it's sometime between the eighth and the August 12 is what the current forecast is.
Speaker 2:To to be filled and then release is typically what after that? Five or six days?
Speaker 4:I believe it's two to six days.
Speaker 2:Okay. Wow. Anything associated with the bridges that we need to cover?
Speaker 4:Yeah. So, while we're closing Backloop Bridge, we're gonna keep Brotherhood Bridge, which is down here on Eagan Drive, open to vehicle traffic. It'll be closed to pedestrian traffic. Again, that's for safety. We don't want folks gathering on the bridge.
Speaker 4:Last year, we did have some tree strikes that sent branches over the railing. So it's pretty hazardous for pedestrians. But we realize it's a critical infrastructure link for the community, and so we're gonna keep that bridge open to vehicle traffic during the event. But we do wanna remind folks, you know, if you have to drive through there, keep moving. Don't stop.
Speaker 4:We wanna make sure that traffic just keeps flowing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And and when this does happen, wanna be, and we've got these safety reminders on the air as well is that you you do not wanna be driving through floodwater regardless of of what level you think that it's at. Right? Or it might be encroaching on on your street or something.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Absolutely. We definitely advise people not to drive through floodwater. And, you know, if if you can, we're also recommending that people just don't travel in the evacuation area. Make sure you respect that evacuation area.
Speaker 2:K. The Vanderbilt Eagan construction that's ongoing right now, it's expected to be finished, Travis, I guess, at the end of, August. Right? Is that the the the target date?
Speaker 3:Yeah. Target date is August 31.
Speaker 2:Okay. And what do folks need to know about that? Because it looks pretty innovative. I we were talking before we went on the air that this is a typical kind of configuration that they use in the forty eights. And what's the one thing people are gonna recognize, that's gonna be different?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So there's there's two major changes. The biggest one is, southbound drivers heading from the valley to downtown. You have a continuous green. So kinda like today with the construction, you you've been able to just kinda drive through.
Speaker 3:It's gonna feel very similar to that. The other the biggest change is the left turn from Vanderbilt, is now a single left turn lane. And so you're you're turning left from Vanderbilt coming from Lemon Creek going towards downtown. You'll have a single left turn lane on your green light. You'll you'll then turn into a new acceleration lane, which is about a quarter mile long.
Speaker 3:So you have lots of time to speed up to highway speeds. Check your shoulder. Look in your mirror and and make your merge into, the southbound Eagan Drive towards downtown.
Speaker 2:And I I've seen the the, the animated graphic that shows the traffic flow. It looks it looks pretty cool. And and it's a pretty quick turnaround. I mean, this is a pretty fast it feels like it just really started. So to construct something of of this scale is is pretty impressive.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. Construction started in May May 27 this year, and I think, you know, a lot of the intersection is very similar, and so that allowed us to to work efficiently. And shout out to the contractor and the crews out there doing hard work, and thank you to to the Juno public who's respecting the work zone. And then and then, yeah, I think it's it's important for the public to have that visual of, like, how is this gonna work before you actually hit the road.
Speaker 3:And so if people wanna go watch that, they can go to eaganvanderbiltintersection.com. We have that video up on the website.
Speaker 2:Cool. I know it's, it's state, but it's a big conversation. Everybody's talking about the Fred Meyer Intersection and when that might be starting and and what what that's gonna look like. That's gonna be a full stop for for that section, which it should be. Right?
Speaker 4:Yeah. That's correct. And and, definitely, if folks have more questions about that, we could, you know, turn them towards the project manager for that. And also our traffic and safety folks, they'd be the best people to get the the best information from.
Speaker 2:Any idea when that that begins or have they identified an actual well, you know, what what they're actually gonna do there?
Speaker 3:I believe, the anticipated construction start date for that one is next spring or summer twenty twenty seven. Okay. And with that one, we'll be sure to put out lots of great information and hopefully do another three d animation video so people can get that good visual of how it work how it will operate.
Speaker 2:Any anything we missed, as far as the upcoming glacial outburst, flood that, we we need that information out there, whether it's, sites that people need to go to make sure they're on the alerts. They haven't done that already. Did we miss anything that we have to get out there?
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think, one note is, we will be flying drones again. And Right. When the when the basin releases, we'll we'll be putting out a temporary flight restriction for for a specific area. And so we we advise, you know, don't don't fly your drones in that area.
Speaker 3:We'll be posting that on our on our socials, what that looks like. And and, yeah, it's just something to be aware of. There will be drones in the sky monitoring important infrastructure and Hesco barriers and and things like that. So don't be
Speaker 2:don't be yeah. We now we have, we set up a webcam there. It's on our website. We're coordinating actually with the public station k two for for theirs. So we've shared our link with them so, you know, people don't have to search for this stuff.
Speaker 2:You know, we've we've got a catchall on on kinyradio.com where we've put, like, all the links to anything that could be potentially out there. Any other webcams that, people should be aware of or that we can capture and make sure it's a kind of a one stop shop for folks?
Speaker 3:Yeah. If you go on the, CBJ flood preparedness website Mhmm. They have a link to all the available, public webcams that are out there right now and that are live. And then another another thing that I'd love to throw out, there's, sign up for notifications for 511.alaska.gov, and you'll get notified when we close the the back loop bridge. And then also CBJ, the flood preparedness website, sign up for their alerts as well so you get notified for for everything that's going on.
Speaker 2:Fantastic. Travis, Sunny, thanks for the the great work and the update today, and we'll have more to talk about as we get closer to this event. Thanks for coming in this morning.
Speaker 4:Yep. Thanks for having us on. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You've been listening to Capital Chat on KINY.