New sandbag-style barriers installed along a river in Alaska’s capital city held back record levels of flooding and prevented widespread damage after an ice dam at the nearby Mendenhall Glacier released a massive amount of rainwater and snowmelt downstream, officials said Wednesday.

This year, a giant wall of reinforced sandbags erected with the help of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers held back the worst of the flooding in Juneau, to residents' great relief.