FAIRBANKS, Alaska – Three families and an elderly man had to be rescued by airboat as floodwaters from the Tanana River rose around their homes Thursday.
Nobody was injured during the evacuation in Salcha, southeast of Fairbanks.
The flooding was caused by an ice jam in the river, which forced water over its banks in the early morning hours.
With temperatures hovering in the teens, rescuers donned dry suits, waded into the frigid water and carried the residents to safety, said Ed Keep-Barnes, chief at Salcha Rescue.
Eight sled dogs also were saved.
Olaf Allison Jr., whose family was the first to be rescued, said he awoke about 4 a.m. to the sound of rushing water. He checked a dike on his property and found no problems.
“I thought that was going to be it, so I went back to sleep,” he said
His wife woke him an hour later to say water was running up to the house.
Outside, the 54-year-old Allison saw a torrent threatening one of his two puppies, which had been lifted to a wood pile by their mother.
He got the mother and puppies to safety, but it was too late to deal with the others.
The dogs jumped on their houses to escape the rising water, except for one whose chain was tangled. The water rose to its neck before it was rescued. It was treated for hypothermia.
The Allisons were chiefly concerned about their infant son, who was born prematurely in July, weighing about a pound.
They lit a fire in the wood stove and fled to the second floor of their house until daybreak, when they called for help.
About a dozen people responded from the Salcha Swift Water Rescue Team, the American Red Cross and the Fairbanks North Star Borough Emergency Operations Department.
“As we came on scene and the rescue began to develop, water continued to rise for another hour and a half,” Keep-Barnes said. “The amount and speed of the water increased during that time.”
The floodwaters also dragged ice and debris into the neighborhood.
Residents of three other homes were evacuated, along with the Allisons: a husband and wife and their three children; a mother and child; and a lone older man, Keep-Barnes said.
Allison’s 29-year-old wife, Jacqueline, carried their son inside her parka aboard the airboat, he said.
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