Anchorage, Alaska
P.A.
—
The damage to isolated Alaska villages hit by last weekend’s flooding is so extreme that many of the more than 2,000 people displaced will not be able to return home for at least 18 months, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a request to the White House for a major disaster declaration.
In one of the hardest-hit villages, Kipnuk, an initial assessment showed that 121 homes — or 90 percent of the total — were destroyed, Dunleavy wrote. In Kwigillingok, where three dozen homes have disappeared, just over a third of residences are uninhabitable.
The remnants of Typhoon Halong hit the region with the ferocity of a Category 2 hurricane, Dunleavy said, sending a surge of high waves into the low-lying region. One person was killed, two remain missing and rescue teams pulled dozens of people from their homes as they moved away.
Authorities scrambled to airlift residents from flooded Alaska Native villages. More than 2,000 people across the region took shelter in their village schools, in larger communities in southwest Alaska or were evacuated by military planes to Anchorage, the state’s largest city.
Anchorage leaders said Friday they expected up to 1,600 evacuees to arrive. So far, about 575 people have been flown to the city by the Alaska National Guard and stayed at a sports arena or convention center. Additional flights were expected on Friday and Saturday.
Officials are working to determine how to move people from shelters to short-term accommodations, such as hotels, and then to longer-term housing.
“Due to time, space, distance, geography and weather conditions in affected areas, it is likely that many survivors will not be able to return to their communities this winter,” Dunleavy said. “Agencies are prioritizing rapid repairs… but it is likely that some damaged communities will not be viable to support winter occupation, in America’s harshest climate, the American Arctic. »
The federal government has already provided assistance with search and rescue, damage assessment, environmental response and evacuation. A major disaster declaration by President Donald Trump could provide federal aid programs for individuals and public infrastructure, including funds for emergency and permanent work.
All three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation sent a letter to Trump on Friday, asking for speedy approval.
The storm surge hit a sparsely populated region far from the state’s main highway system, where communities are only accessible by air or sea at this time of year. Villages typically have only a few hundred residents, who hunt and fish for much of their food, and relocation to the state’s larger cities will bring a very different way of life.
Alexie Stone, of Kipnuk, arrived in Anchorage on a military plane with his brothers, children and mother after his home was hit by flooding. They stayed at the Alaska Airlines Center at the University of Alaska, where the Red Cross provided evacuees with cots, blankets and hygiene products.
At least for the foreseeable future, he thinks he might try to get a job at a grocery store; he worked in an establishment in Bethel.
“It will be, try to look for a place and find a job,” Stone said Friday. “We are starting a new life here in Anchorage.”
Anchorage officials and business leaders said Friday they were eager to help evacuees.
“Our western Alaska neighbors have experienced tremendous loss, devastation and grief,” Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said at an Anchorage Assembly meeting. “We will do everything we can here in Anchorage to welcome our neighbors and help them through these difficult times.”
State Rep. Nellie Unangiq Jimmie, of Toksook Bay, on an island northwest of Kipnuk, described to the gathering how she weathered the storm’s 100 mph winds with her daughter and niece.
“We had no choice but to sit in our house and wait to see if our house was going to fall off its foundation or if debris was going to blow our windows open,” she said.
It didn’t, but others weren’t so lucky. She thanked Anchorage for welcoming the evacuees.
“You’re showing my people, my loved ones, my constituents, even though they’re far from home, that this is still Alaska land and they’re family,” Jimmie said.