Large-scale evacuations underway from storm-battered Western Alaska villages

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.