No, we did not float away.  The Corp’s handiwork with the diversion dam seems to have handled the high water just fine.  We checked in daily as we came in and out of the park, of course.

Up to three inches of rain throughout the watershed lead to a high and fast Chena River.  Corp engineers and rangers are everywhere.  At first just watching and leaning but that evolves into measuring and driving the dikes.  A 7 mile long, tree lined, grass covered dry lakebed stretches out in front of us.  The gates on the dam close a bit. They are throttling to limit flow through Fairbanks.  The river rises and entire trees carried by the roaring currents come crashing into the dam.  The pile of debris grows.  The river rises on the banks upstream of the dam.  Small pools and swampy spots form out in the lake bed.  The Chena overtops her banks to form a lake several miles wide but no where near fills the prepared lakebed.  Somebody’s driveway bridge adds to the debris pile. Fairbanks suffers a bit of flooding on a park-side bike path.  The Chena retreats back into her banks and the lake begins to drain.  Looks like it all worked just like it was supposed to.

Some areas didn’t fair quite as well.  The road to Chena Hot Springs had 18” of water overflowing it.  The radio described it as “Impassable to some vehicles” seems that they take this sort of thing right in stride up here.   One of the businesses set up a car ferry using a low boy, more local creativity!  We passed on that.