ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – This week marks several significant anniversaries in Alaska history, from the founding of a university to the territory’s purchase from Russia.

On Oct. 13, 1960 — Alaska Methodist University held its first classes on the Anchorage campus. The school, now known as Alaska Pacific University, was founded by Peter Gordon Gould, the first Alaska Native minister in the United Methodist Church.

Gould, originally from Unga, an island in the Aleutians just east of Cold Bay, attended college in Syracuse, New York, but wanted Alaskans to have a place to study closer to home. The university now partners with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and remains affiliated with the Methodist Church.

Oct. 14, 1865 — This date marks the 160th anniversary of the birth of Sydney Laurence, one of Alaska’s most famous artists. Born in Brooklyn in 1865, Laurence was already established before arriving in Alaska.

He studied and exhibited in New York before marrying another artist and moving to England, where he showed his work in London and Paris. In 1904, he moved to Alaska, initially working as a prospector before returning to art. By 1920, he had become one of the territory’s most prominent artists, known for his stark pastels.

Oct. 14, 1879 — Naturalist and conservationist John Muir visited Glacier Bay with Tlingit guides. According to the National Park Service, Muir believed Yosemite Valley had been carved by glaciers, so he came to Alaska to study the rivers of ice.

Muir, often called the “father of the National Park Service,” was a fierce advocate for wilderness preservation.

Oct. 15, 2000 — A Northwest Airlines 747 cargo plane taking off from Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport experienced mechanical problems. The crew heard a thump, then another, and felt substantial vibration.

The pilot aborted takeoff and tried to stop, but the aircraft ended up off the runway about 500 feet from the tarmac in a cleared area. Two tires were shredded and destroyed, with eight other tires going flat. The plane sustained minor damage.

Oct. 16, 1972 — This day marked the beginning of the search for Alaska’s U.S. Rep. Nick Begich Sr., whose disappearance remains a mystery. His grandson, Rep. Nick Begich III, was born after his grandfather’s disappearance and now serves in the U.S. House.

Oct. 18, 1867 — Commemorating the transfer of Alaska from Russia to the United States. On that date in 1867, the United States took possession of the territory at New Archangel, now known as Sitka. Today, the day is known as “Alaska Day.”

The Russians had wanted to sell the land to the U.S. much earlier in 1859, but negotiations were stalled due to the brewing Civil War. Secretary of State William Seward agreed to purchase Alaska for $7.2 million.

Skeptics called it “Seward’s Folly” until the territory became the gateway to the Klondike Gold Rush and subsequent gold rushes.

Alaska Day is observed on Oct. 17 this year.

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ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy said Thursday night that the airlift of residents displaced by Typhoon Halong could become one of the largest emergency evacuations in state history, as hundreds of evacuees arrived in Anchorage from flood-stricken Western Alaska.

Speaking from the Alaska Airlines Center on the University of Alaska Anchorage campus, where cots, food and medical care have been set up, Dunleavy said the first plane carrying evacuees landed Thursday evening and more were expected Friday.

“This may end up being one of the largest airlifts of Alaskans in the history of the state due to a disaster,” Dunleavy said. “We’re expecting upwards of 1,400 people, I think is the number, coming in tonight, tomorrow.”

The Red Cross, University of Alaska, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, the National Guard and other agencies have helped convert the sports arena into a temporary shelter. Dunleavy said many evacuees arrived with little more than the clothes on their backs.

He thanked the City of Bethel, village leaders and Anchorage officials for opening their doors. “It’s a great thing that tells a lot about Alaska,” the governor said, calling those displaced “some of the most resilient people on the face of the earth.”

Entire villages devastated

Dunleavy described scenes of destruction in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where homes were torn from their foundations and swept away.

“The scene that was described to me was almost something out of a warzone,” Dunleavy said, adding that some communities might be uninhabitable “for some time.”

Dunleavy said he and emergency managers plan to travel to the region Friday for an on-the-ground assessment to evaluate the extent of the damage.

“We’ll be going out there on Friday, a number of us, to actually do an on-the-ground assessment … to see what condition these villages are in, what condition the houses are in, the infrastructure,” he said.

The governor noted that Halong’s impact was more concentrated than Typhoon Merbok in 2022, which stretched over an 800-mile area. This time, he said, the devastation was more localized, meaning recovery efforts will need to focus closely on that region.

Federal support promised

Dunleavy said he had been in contact with President Donald Trump since late Wednesday night and that the president personally assured him of federal assistance.

“He has assured me that the federal government is going to be there to help,” Dunleavy said, noting that Trump had texted him after midnight Eastern time to offer federal assistance despite the ongoing government shutdown.

Dunleavy posted on X at around 11:30 p.m. Wednesday, “The first planeload of those impacted by the typhoon that hit Western Alaska arrived in Anchorage. We will do everything we can to get people back up on their feet as soon as possible. @POTUS asked me to let Alaskans know he is monitoring the situation and more help is on the way.”

The governor praised the Coast Guard, National Guard and local responders for rescuing people from flooded home. “It’s all hands on deck,” he said. “I couldn’t be prouder of Alaska.

Rebuilding will take time

The governor cautioned that recovery from Halong will be complex and time sensitive, with winter approaching. He said the first step is ensuring that all evacuees have safe shelter, food and medical care while officials begin assessing long-term needs.

“First priority is making sure people have a roof over their head, they have food, they have a place to sleep,” Dunleavy said “When they can go back to the villages … we don’t know that until we do the assessment.

He said he will join state emergency crews for a preliminary flyover and site visit Friday to evaluate conditions before freeze-up limits travel. “We don’t have much of a time to transition,” he said, noting that the storm struck just before the seasonal change.

Dunleavy said the state intends to move as quickly as possible to return to normalcy for the affected communities but warned that rebuilding villages could take time.

Despite the destruction, Dunleavy emphasized Alaskans’ resilience.

“Alaskans are tough people,” he said. “We’re going to do everything we can to get people back to where they were and get life back to normal as soon as possible.

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Hundreds of people were being evacuated from the Western Alaska village of Kipnuk Wednesday after residents were told to pack a single bag and leave the community, one of the hardest hit by a catastrophic storm that deluged swaths of the Yukon-Kuskokwim region over the weekend.

The storm left housing uninhabitable and utilities inoperable in communities around the region, displacing more than 1,000 from their homes. Just over 1,300 people were sheltering in schools in eight communities as of Tuesday evening, according to an Alaska State Emergency Operations Center situation report.

Kipnuk, a Yup’ik community of about 700 near the Bering Sea coast, suffered the most extreme storm damage along with Kwigillingok, located at the mouth of the Kuskokwim River.

The storm has claimed at least one life and left two people missing, all in Kwigillingok. Alaska State Troopers said three family members were last seen in a house that broke loose and floated toward the Bering Sea amid record tidal surges.

The body of 67-year-old Ella Mae Kashatok was recovered Monday. Still missing are Vernon Pavil, 71, and Chester Kashatok, 41. The search for their floating house covered roughly 88 square miles miles, emergency officials say.

In Kipnuk as many as 600 residents spent several nights at a shelter in the local school. The shelter’s occupants were told Wednesday they must leave, according to several village residents.

So far, Kipnuk is the only village known to be under such a broad evacuation notice. There were unconfirmed reports Wednesday of a similar mass evacuation in Kwigillingok, a Yup’ik village of about 400 residents.

The state has not issued any mandatory evacuation orders, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesperson for the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

However, Kipnuk and Kwigillingok “have asked the state and the Alaska National Guard to support a full evacuation of both communities,” Zidek said Wednesday.

At least some evacuees are going to Anchorage: The University of Alaska Anchorage will shelter 400 displaced residents in the Alaska Airlines Center arena on campus with the help of the American Red Cross.

People are expected to arrive in Anchorage as early as Wednesday evening, according to Katie Bender, director of marketing and communications at UAA. She said it is still unclear how many residents will arrive, or which villages they have evacuated from.

As of Tuesday evening, hundreds of people were sheltering in schools across numerous villages, including 400 people in Kwigillingok, 50 in Napakiak, 109 in Nightmute, 70 in Tuntutuliak, 50 in Chefornak and 30 in Nunam Iqua, according to the state’s situation report issued Wednesday.

The storm damaged nearly all homes in Kipnuk, located 98 miles southwest of Bethel. Conditions were deteriorating at the school, where 600 people sheltered last night, according to the emergency operations center report.

The community had asked for more water and “assistance with a failing school generator,” the report said. The National Weather Service was also predicting another, albeit weaker, storm would move over the region by late Wednesday night.

On Wednesday, officials visited the remaining residents at the school to announce a mandatory evacuation, according to videos posted online by Buggy Carl, a Kipnuk resident and emergency response official.

People are hurting, he tells people watching the video, one of several he’s made to film updates of the on-the-ground situation in the community.

“So many tears. Just crying their eyes out. I understand their pain and frustration, but this is for their own safety,” Carl says to the camera.

Jacqui Lang, a teacher at the Chief Paul Memorial School in Kipnuk, said many residents don’t want to go. All have been told they have to leave their pets and almost all belongings behind.

Evacuation “is no longer optional,” she said. “They’re saying that the school is not safe.”

People were being flown out on large Black Hawk helicopters as well as smaller private planes, Lang said.

On Wednesday, she was trying to coordinate with a Bethel pet rescue to get the animals still in the village out, putting on duct-tape collars with owner information to help owners find animals if an airlift can be arranged.

“People are devastated,” Lang said. “They don’t want to leave.”

Most of the people being flown out of the remote villages, accessible only by air, are headed first for the regional hub of Bethel, where an armory building is set up to house around 100 evacuees, and where donations have been piling up. Other evacuees have said they want to join family members in neighboring, less-damaged communities in the region, Lang said.

More short- and long-term plans for sheltering evacuees will be announced soon, said Zidek, the state emergency management spokesperson.

“We’re looking at capacity in other communities around the state that could absorb some of the folks that are being evacuated,” he said.

The goal, Zidek said, will also be to get less-damaged homes livable before winter sets in.

“We’re going to look to do that in every community that we can, to get people back into their homes,” he said. “We’re preparing to provide intermediate and long term shelter to folks that cannot return to their home in the short term.”

Daily News reporter Bella Biondini contributed.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.