Storm decimates 2 Alaskan villages and drives more than 1,500 people from their homes

JUNEAU Alaska AP More rain and wind were forecast Wednesday along the Alaskan coast where two tiny villages were decimated by the remnants of Typhoon Halong and leaders were scrambling to find shelter for more than people driven from their homes The weekend storm brought high winds and surf that battered the low-lying Alaska Native communities along the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the southwestern part of the state nearly miles km from Anchorage At least one person was killed and two were missing The Coast Guard plucked two dozen people from their homes after the structures floated out to sea Hundreds were staying in school shelters including one with no working toilets officers mentioned The weather system followed a storm that struck parts of western Alaska days earlier Across the region more than people were displaced Dozens were flown to a shelter set up in the National Guard armory in the regional hub city of Bethel a society of people and officers were considering flying evacuees to longer-term shelter or urgency housing in Fairbanks and Anchorage The hardest-hit communities included Kipnuk population and Kwigillingok population They are off the state s main road system and reachable this time of year only by water or by air It s catastrophic in Kipnuk Let s not paint any other picture Mark Roberts situation commander with the state crisis management division recounted a news conference Tuesday We are doing everything we can to continue to help that society but it is as bad as you can think Heartbreaking moment Among those awaiting evacuation to Bethel on Tuesday was Brea Paul of Kipnuk who declared in a text message that she had seen about homes floating away through the moonlight on Saturday night Selected houses would blink their phone lights at us like they were asking for help but we couldn t even do anything she wrote The following morning she recorded video of a house submerged nearly to its roofline as it floated past her home Paul and her neighbors had a long meeting in the local school gym on Monday night They sang songs as they tried to figure out what to do next she stated Paul wasn t sure where she would go It s so heartbreaking saying goodbye to our society members not knowing when we d get to see each other she stated About miles kilometers away in Kwigillingok one woman was detected dead and bureaucrats on Monday night called off the search for two men whose home floated away The school was the only facility in town with full power but it had no working toilet and people stayed there Monday night Workers were trying to fix the bathrooms a situation summary from the state urgency operations center on Tuesday noted that portable toilets or honey buckets were being used A preliminary assessment indicated every home in the village was damaged by the storm with about three dozen having drifted from their foundations the urgency management office explained Power systems flooded in Napakiak and severe erosion was revealed in Toksook Bay In Nightmute executives declared fuel drums were disclosed floating in the district and there was a scent of fuel in the air and a sheen on the water The National Guard was activated to help with the urgency response and crews were trying to take advantage of any breaks in the weather to fly in food water generators and communication equipment Long road to recovery ahead representatives say Bureaucrats warned of a long road to recovery and a need for continued endorsement for the hardest-hit communities Greater part rebuilding supplies would have to be transported in and there is little time left with winter just around the corner Indigenous communities in Alaska are resilient declared Rick Thoman an Alaska conditions specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks But you know when you have an entire district where effectively every house is damaged and a multitude of of them will be uninhabitable with winter knocking at the door now there s only so much that any individual or any small society can do Thoman explained the storm was likely fueled by the warm surface waters of the Pacific Ocean which has been heating up because of human-caused circumstances change and making storms more intense The remnants of another storm Typhoon Merbok caused damage across a massive swath of western Alaska three years ago Johnson and Attanasio communicated from Seattle Source