The overlooked disaster
Storms trigger a humanitarian crisis in western Alaska

Powerful back-to-back storms have ravaged dozens of mostly Alaska Native communities in western Alaska: Approximately 2,000 people were displaced, and at least one village was entirely torn apart. 

Many people lost everything and are now sheltering far from home, where they face an uncertain future. Unfortunately, climate change is part of their story.

On Oct. 12, ex-Typhoon Halong, the second and stronger storm, slammed into the villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok along the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. A late jog in the storm track gave the more than 1,000 residents little warning.

As gusts topped 100 miles per hour and seawater surged inland, houses never built for such conditions floated away or crumbled. In Kipnuk, people crawled through the windows of flooding houses and waded in darkness and howling winds toward their neighbors, only to find their homes gone, too. The school provided shelter. 

Rescuers arriving in Kipnuk found nearly all homes destroyed and failing water, sanitation and power. Far from Alaska’s road system, the village of 700 evacuated, in what became part of Alaska’s largest-ever civilian airlift.

Helicopters plucked people from eroded runways, carrying them 60 miles to Bethel, population 6,200. As shelters overflowed, C-17 military transports thundered in to bring survivors to Anchorage, another 300 miles from home. Exhausted survivors filed from planes without much more than their clothing. 

Many do not know when or if they’ll ever return home.

Their plight is unique in America. No roads lead to these communities. No utility trucks are headed their way, something we see after Western fires and Atlantic hurricanes. Everything arrives slowly and at exorbitant cost by barge or plane, mostly in summer.

Additionally, many residents live by a subsistence economy. They have lost hard-won winter stores and precious boats, snow machines and other expensive tools for securing food. They are American refugees.

In a day, these members of close-knit and culturally distinct communities suddenly scattered to Bethel, Fairbanks, Anchorage and elsewhere. People are generously sharing necessities, but they can’t replace connections, like the daily use of the Yup’ik language and humor, or a young person walking in the door with fresh traditional soup for an elder.

Although fierce fall storms are common in Alaska, scientists have long warned that ongoing warming in the North Pacific and Bering Sea can energize the storms beyond historical norms. Today, a stubborn Pacific marine heatwave exacerbates the warming. It’s premature to say how much global warming fed these storms, but the science warrants dialogue and research, not the recent zeroing-out of federal research funds.

Declining sea ice and thawing permafrost have also dramatically increased erosion in dozens of Alaskan communities, especially during fall storms. The recent storms tore away more land, edging waters closer to vital power and other infrastructure. At the village  of Quinhagak, the storm swallowed 60 feet of shoreline and scattered thousands of Yup’ik archaeological artifacts.

Federal reports name more than 30 Alaskan villages imminently threatened by erosion. Investing in their resilience to avoid the trauma and astronomic cost of relocation – or sudden destruction – was behind Biden-era clean energy and infrastructure laws, which Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and other Alaskans helped author.

But the new administration abruptly canceled dozens of projects, including a $20 million EPA plan to fortify the now-decimated Kipnuk. The work would not have started in time to make a difference by this fall, but what just happened signals an urgent need for investment in vulnerable communities.

The disaster comes amid a government shutdown and the gutting of Alaska public radio, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the National Weather Service, which now flies fewer weather balloons to aid forecasters near the Bering Sea. 

Yet Alaska’s National Guard, Native consortiums, businesses and nonprofits have embraced survivors. They are cleaning up and flying pet-rescue missions. In Anchorage, shelters have opened for survivors, and an already stretched school district is compassionately working to absorb at least 130 displaced students, for whom urban schools may bring further shock.

Western Alaska communities, already bearing their share of the disaster, are also acting on ingrained Yup’ik and Iñupiat values as they support their neighbors. It’s how Indigenous people have thrived here for 10,000 years.

Outside Alaska, news media didn’t give this disaster its due and has since moved on. But people should know about these storms and can consider giving to the Alaska Community Foundation relief fund coordinated through Alaska Native and other organizations.

Tim Lydon lives in Alaska and is a contributor to Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.