A rainstorm Saturday night was a "50 year rainfall event" for July in Anchorage, dousing parts of the city with more than 2 inches of rain in less than 12 hours, the National Weather Service said Sunday.
The storm also washed away Janice Anderson's short-lived stability.
Anderson was one of about 30 people who were ordered to evacuate from an apartment building near 12th and Cordova that partly flooded during the weekend storm. She said that before getting a basement apartment at the complex she'd been homeless for 10 years.
On Saturday night, Anderson was asleep on what she described as heavy medication when her personal care attendant woke her up.
"I was sleeping in water," she said. "It filled my bed up, and I didn't know."
The water was roughly waist-deep, she said. The waterline crawled up kitchen cabinets and walls, moving furniture and bringing in debris from outside.
"It was like an ocean out there," she said.
On Sunday, Anderson returned to the complex to survey her damaged apartment. She grabbed a water-logged photo album with pictures of her daughter inside.
Anderson said she is sick, on oxygen and was recently in the hospital. The Red Cross was putting her up in a hotel for three days.
"I don't know what to do. Now I'm homeless again," she said.
The Red Cross prepared for about 30 evacuees Saturday night after being told by the Anchorage Fire Department that the basement level of the apartment building was flooding and the structure would be evacuated, said spokeswoman Beth Bennett.
Ultimately 14 people showed up at the Fairview Recreation Center, where the Red Cross set up a temporary shelter.
A family of five ended up spending the night at the temporary shelter. As of Sunday, they had been moved to a hotel.
Bennett said she couldn't remember the last time the Red Cross had helped a big group of people evacuated due to flooding in Anchorage.
"To be honest, one of the challenges we face in Anchorage is people just don't think of this kind of disaster," she said.
Sudden flooding is more common in other parts of the state, such as the Mat-Su Valley and in many rural areas near fast-rising rivers. But it is a city problem too, Bennett said. And when it happens, it happens fast.
"In the span of five minutes your home can be up to your waist in water," she said.
The Red Cross offers information on flood preparedness on its website.
It's not clear what caused the localized flooding at the apartment building near 12th and Cordova.
Wallace Hickman, who lives in an upstairs apartment undamaged by the flood, said he heard a drain had backed up.
"I guess (the city) came out and unclogged it," he said. But not before the rains had subsided and the damage was done.
"As you can see, it's a mess," he said.
Construction contributed to the flooding of a few midtown intersections during the storm, said Anchorage Police Department spokeswoman Jennifer Castro in an email.
"Our understanding is that a lot of these areas being flooded were construction sites and there is some material they use to cover the drains to filter the water," she wrote. "This apparently was causing flooding in these areas after a heavy rainfall last night."
The storm was unusual in its intensity, the National Weather Service said.
The highest rainfall totals for the storm were logged at Lake Otis Parkway and O'Malley Road, with 2.20 inches, and 1.78 inches measured at the Old Seward Highway and Tudor Road. The lowest storm total for the Anchorage Bowl was recorded at Lake Hood, with 0.87 inches of rain, according to the NWS.
"On average, there is a two percent chance in a given year of seeing these rainfall totals in a 12 hour span in Anchorage," a National Weather Service bulletin said.