Homer Mayor Rachel Lord declared a local emergency after water and debris washed over the Homer Spit last weekend, damaging parts of the road and forcing closures.
The emergency declaration allows the city to access funds to address the damage.
Only one lane of traffic is currently open on the Spit after strong winds, high tides, and waves pushed rocks and debris onto the road Saturday, damaging sections of the outbound lane.
Justin Shelby is the administrative operations manager for the Department of Transportation central region. He said the goal is to reopen the second lane later this week.
“We are in the process of getting a contractor out there to bring in some material and a grader and get that road back to two lanes, ideally in the next day or so,” Shelby said.
A full moon pushed tides to over 22 feet starting Friday and continued to build with each tide. Eddie Zingone, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Anchorage, said those tides, while on the “bigger” side, are considered normal. But he said wind direction and other factors combined on Saturday, increasing their impact.
“The problem was that the high tides correlated with when you had the largest seas that were coming in from the wind direction, from the west-southwest, that could bring those higher seas, built up in Cook Inlet, and bring them right up to the spit,” Zingone said.
He said Kachemak Bay and the surrounding areas will see lower high tides as the moon wanes. Meanwhile, crews are working to restore two-lane traffic and eventually shore up the Spit with larger rocks to prevent further erosion.
This story was originally published by KBBI-Homer reporter Simon Lopez.
Cover photo credit: Adverse weather conditions and high tides damaged sections of the Homer Spit over the weekend of Nov. 16-17, 2024. (Simon Lopez/KBBI)