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The Japanese Creek, pictured in June 2021, carries sediment, rocks and debris down from the mountains. The debris can move with violence and speed during surge flood events, threatening Seward, Alaska. Credit: Young Kim for The Hechinger Report
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SEWARD, Alaska It’s always difficult for Selma Casagranda’s friends to come to her birthday parties. This story also appeared in Peninsula Clarion
The recent Seward High School graduate was born in September, prime flooding season in her hometown of Seward, Alaska, on the Kenai Peninsula, which juts into the Gulf of Alaska south of Anchorage. Home to around 3,000 people, Seward sits between Resurrection Bay and the Kenai Mountains. A massive 700-square-mile glacial icefield flows out of the mountains, melting off into braided rive