About 30 people were evacuated from an Anchorage apartment building following flash flooding that stranded cars and shut down some Anchorage streets Saturday night.
The Anchorage Fire Department evacuated a multiplex off Cordova and 12th Street after apartments on the lower level flooded and the department deemed the building to be unsafe. The residents were transported on a People Mover bus to an evacuation shelter set up at the Fairview Rec Center by the The American Red Cross of Alaska.
The National Weather Service described the heavy rain between 4 p.m. Saturday and 4 a.m. Sunday as a "12 hour-50 year rainfall event," with the heaviest generally falling in a corridor along the Seward Highway from Midtown to South Anchorage before tapering off overnight. The heaviest rainfall recorded was 2.2 inches at a weather station at Lake Otis Parkway and O'Malley Road.
Chester Creek briefly rose to minor flood stage, the weather service said.
No streets were closed on Sunday morning, Anchorage police reported.
Beth Bennett, regional communications officer for the local branch of the Red Cross, said two staff members and a half dozen volunteers were deployed around 10 p.m. Of the 30 people evacuated, she anticipated about 12-14 would stay the night at the shelter. Normally, Red Cross would have sent the displaced residents to a hotel, but rooms were limited due to it being peak tourist season, Bennett said.
She said the tone among the evacuated residents was "very quiet."
"They're settling into the situation. Some people are very concerned about their belongings and homes, and that's very natural."
The building residents weren't able to take many belongings with them, she said. "They weren't given a lot of time" to leave the structure.
She said the Red Cross was setting up some extra beds for other Anchorage residents put out by the storm.
Heavy flooding was reported on major roads across Midtown. Around 10 p.m., the Anchorage Police Department closed the intersections of International Airport Road at Old Seward Highway and A Street at 36th Avenue after reports of vehicles getting stuck in the water.
A Street just north of 36th Avenue had turned into a canal with water up to 2 feet deep for a couple of blocks. Highway crews had blocked off the street.
Other heavily flooded areas include Northern Lights and Benson between Denali and A Streets, C Street at 19th Avenue and 36th Avenue at the New Seward Highway.
More rain is expected to continue across portions of Anchorage through Saturday night and into Sunday, according to the National Weather Service. The agency issued a flooding advisory for the area, noting that rivers and streams are elevated from runoff and water has been collecting in streets, underpasses and in poor drainage areas and low lying spots.
"Do not drive your vehicle into areas where the water cover the roadway," officials with the National Weather Service said. "The water depth maybe to too deep to allow your car to cross safely ... It takes only a few inches of swiftly flowing water to carry vehicles away."
In a separate incident, police temporarily closed Abbott Road at Hillside Drive after a vehicle went over a hill and tow crews worked to retrieve it, Castro wrote. The process was expected to take about two hours. The single-vehicle accident occurred just before 7:30 p.m. and the driver was transported to the hospital with life-threatening injuries.