Current News

/

ArcaMax

Dozens rescued, more than 1,000 displaced, at least 3 still missing after storm devastates Western Alaska

Michelle Theriault Boots, Anchorage Daily News on

Published in News & Features

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — At least three people remain missing and more than 50 people have been rescued after a devastating storm system sent unprecedented levels of flooding into Western Alaska communities including Kwigillingok and Kipnuk, displacing more than 1,000 people.

The remnants of Typhoon Halong battered the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region over the weekend, causing storm-surge flooding in some communities, destroying homes and infrastructure in villages across the region, and sending residents fleeing to safe shelter. The National Weather Service reported hurricane-force winds gusting over 100 mph and record tidal surges.

On Monday, the catastrophic toll of the damage began to come into focus across the region as residents of villages reported their losses: More than 1,000 people displaced from their homes, dozens of houses floated off their foundations and destroyed, crucial infrastructure such as sewer systems and wells damaged, and precious caches of subsistence food lost.

The event, "just from the impacts, is apparently unprecedented in in modern times," in its destruction, said Rick Thoman, a climate expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

As of Monday morning, 51 people from Kipnuk and Kwigillingok had been pulled from flooded homes, according to the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center. U.S. Coast Guard crews have rescued 34 people, the Alaska Army National Guard nine more, and the Alaska Air National Guard extracted eight people and two dogs.

Scores of people have been evacuated, including several from Kipnuk who were taken to Bethel for medical care, the Rescue Coordination Center said. Plans were underway to evacuate 40 more people with medical needs, including elders and pregnant women, to Bethel, according to the Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation.

About 400 people were sheltering at the school in Kwigillingok and 680 in Kipnuk, the Bethel-based tribal health organization said in a statement. More than 1,000 people around the region have been displaced from their homes and the runway at Kipnuk was damaged, the statement said.

With so many people sheltering in the schools, "conditions are expected to worsen in the next few days. Thirty-seven homes in Kwigillingok were lost. We need immediate assistance from the State and federal governments to restore power and water, complete housing assessments, make the Kipnuk runway operational, and provide a significant amount of water, food, and supplies to those villages and others," YKHC president Dan Winkelman said in a statement.

Rescue efforts continued Monday morning, including a search headed by the Alaska State Troopers for three people missing from Kwigillingok, a community of about 400 people near the mouth of the Kuskokwim River.

As the scope of the devastation began to come into focus Monday, community representatives in villages including Nightmute and Napakiak reported dozens of homes and fish camps damaged, moved from their foundations or destroyed on a call with the Association of Village Council Presidents, which represents 48 communities in the Bethel and Kusilvak census areas.

Many of these homes lost housed multiple generations of families, according to YKHC officials.

In Kwigillingok, early reports indicated that virtually every home in the community had been damaged, according to communications shared with the dozens of emergency response workers and media on the call. At least 37 homes had drifted away in the floodwaters.

Communications with Kipnuk, a community of 700 people situated 98 miles southwest of Bethel near the Bering Sea coast, remained difficult on Monday, people on the call said.

Nightmute reported 17 homes affected by the storm, with some drifting off their foundations in floodwaters, roofing blown away, along with two businesses and 25 fish camp structures displaced or damaged.

In Napakiak, about 20 homes were knocked off their foundations, a community representative said on the call. People were sheltering at the school, but there was concern about dwindling water supplies. Floodwaters reached inside the store, but it wasn't clear how bad the damage was.

People also reported lost subsistence foods, with freezers flooded and fish drying racks destroyed. Boardwalks were damaged in some communities.

Reports and video from the communities showed floodwaters sweeping homes from their foundations, as well as people injured by flying debris. Communities from Bethel to Toksook Bay also sustained damage from flooding and high winds.

 

People are still in emergency response and search-and-rescue mode, said Peter Evon, the president of AVCP's Regional Housing Authority. It is clear that, in region that already has some of the highest rates of housing overcrowding anywhere, the complete loss of dozens of homes and damage to untold others will be a long-term crisis.

Bethel, the regional hub, also has little open housing, Evon said. Repairing and rebuilding homes will not be quick.

"That process is going to take, literally, a couple years," he said. "So people that are displaced, it's not going to be just a couple of months. It is going to be lengthy."

The Yukon Kuskokwim Health Corporation is sending pallets of water, food and sanitation supplies like diapers, wipes and hand sanitizer to the hardest-hit communities, including Kipnuk, Kwigillingok, Tuntutuliak, Napakiak, Chefornak, and Nightmute.

A dissipating typhoon moving into the Bering Sea is nothing new, said Thoman, the Alaska climate expert affiliated with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. But this storm system, after brewing near Japan, encountered record warm North Pacific Ocean surface water as it moved toward Alaska, supercharging the storm.

"Warm water along its virtually entire track gave it more energy than it otherwise would have," he said. "There's certainly a climate change connection there. Would this have happened without overheated North Pacific? Entirely possible. Probably wouldn't have been as strong as it wound up being."

Tides rose a record 6.6 feet above normal in Kipnuk, said meteorologist Joshua Ribail with the National Weather Service. In Kwigillingok, tides reached 6.3 feet above normal. Both are records.

That doesn't mean tides reached 6.6 feet higher up the coastline than they usually would, Thoman said: It means vertical feet of water.

In the low-lying communities hit hardest, "the land is so close to sea level to start, there is very little room for for getting through these big pushes of seawater and the level of the ocean rising in these big storms," he said.

Communities reported high winds, including a top speed of 107 mph in Kusilvak, before sensors stopped working in the midst of the storm in some places.

"This was an extreme event," Ribail said.

Waters are still higher than normal but no longer in flood stage as communities survey the wreckage and rescuers continue to search, he said. The forecast for Monday includes breezy winds and fog.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy added areas of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta region to a previous disaster declaration issued Oct. 9 for a prior and damaging Bering Sea storm that hit the Northwest Arctic Borough. The designation makes people in the region eligible for state disaster recovery programs.

Dunleavy and other officials were scheduled to hold a media briefing later Monday.

_____


© 2025 the Alaska Dispatch News (Anchorage, Alaska). Visit www.adn.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

 

Comments

blog comments powered by Disqus

 

Comics

Jon Russo Dog Eat Doug Andy Marlette 1 and Done Baby Blues Aunty Acid