The Mendenhall Glacier — a thinning, retreating glacier that is a major tourist attraction in southeast Alaska — acts as a dam for Suicide Basin, which fills each spring and summer with rainwater and snowmelt. The basin itself was left behind when a smaller glacier nearby retreated.

Sections of Alaska’s capital city are bracing for the arrival of what could be record floodwaters due to rainwater and snowmelt flowing downstream from a basin dammed by the Mendenhall

Because the flooding has been a growing concern, city officials have installed emergency flood barriers along several miles of riverbanks.