More rain and wind were forecast Wednesday along the Alaskan coast where two tiny villages were decimated by the remnants of Typhoon Halong and officials were scrambling to find shelter for more than 1,500 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 500 miles (800 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, officials said. The weather system followed a storm that struck parts of western Alaska days earlier.
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Across the region, more than 1,500 people were displaced. Dozens were flown to a shelter set up in the National Guard armory in the regional hub city of Bethel, a community of 6,000 people, and officials were considering flying evacuees to longer-term shelter or emergency housing in Fairbanks and Anchorage.
In this photo provided by Alaska National Guard, members of the Alaska National Guard prepare for departure from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, during storm response operations after Typhoon Halong’s landfall.
(Capt. Balinda O’Neal/Alaska National Guard via AP)
The hardest-hit communities included Kipnuk, population 715, and Kwigillingok, population 380. 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, incident commander with the state emergency management division, told a news conference Tuesday. “We are doing everything we can to continue to support that community, 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 said in a text message that she had seen about 20 homes floating away through the moonlight on Saturday night.
“Some 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.
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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 said. Paul wasn’t sure where she would go.
“It’s so heartbreaking saying goodbye to our community members not knowing when we’d get to see each other,” she said.
About 30 miles away in Kwigillingok, one woman was found dead and authorities on Monday night called off the search for two men whose home floated away.
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The school was the only facility in town with full power, but it had no working toilet and 400 people stayed there Monday night. Workers were trying to fix the bathrooms; a situation report from the state emergency operations center on Tuesday noted that portable toilets, or “honey buckets,” were being used.
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A preliminary assessment showed every home in the village was damaged by the storm, with about three dozen having drifted from their foundations, the emergency management office said.
Power systems flooded in Napakiak, and severe erosion was reported in Toksook Bay. In Nightmute, officials said fuel drums were reported floating in the community, 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 emergency response, and crews were trying to take advantage of any breaks in the weather to fly in food, water, generators and communication equipment.
In this photo provided by Alaska National Guard, members of the Alaska National Guard arrive in Kotzebue, Alaska, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, to support operations responding to the damage caused by Typhoon Halong.
(Alaska National Guard via AP))
Long Road To Recovery Ahead
Officials warned of a long road to recovery and a need for continued support for the hardest-hit communities. Most 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,” said Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “But, you know, when you have an entire community where effectively every house is damaged and many of them will be uninhabitable with winter knocking at the door now, there’s only so much that any individual or any small community can do.”
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Thoman said the storm was likely fueled by the warm surface waters of the Pacific Ocean, which has been heating up because of human-caused climate 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.
JUNEAU, Alaska (KTUU) – The Supreme Court of Alaska will be taking up the case of the State of Alaska, Division of Elections v. Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr.
The oral arguments will be held Monday at 10 a.m. via Zoom, according to an order and opening notice.
The document also specifies that a decision is expected to be made before noon on Tuesday.
According to documents from the Division of Elections, the state must start printing ballots at noon on the same day.
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This comes after an Anchorage Superior Court Judge ordered Dan J. Sullivan on to the ballot Friday.
See a spelling or grammar error? Report it to web@ktuu.com
A new home under construction in Potter Valley in Anchorage. (Loren Holmes / ADN)
This June, two very different offers reach Alaska families, and both amount to the same thing: $10,000. The difference is everything.
Bill Walker, running for governor, would hand every eligible Alaskan a one-time $10,000 check and then end the Permanent Fund dividend for good. Ask one question: Where does his $10,000 come from?
It comes from the Permanent Fund, the people’s own money and the savings Alaskans built for their children. Walker would spend that endowment once to pay Alaskans to give up the yearly dividend forever.
Think about what that does. It cancels the annual check that gives a family a reason to keep an Alaska address and replaces it with a single payout. You hand people their own savings, call it a gift and cut the tie that held them here in the same motion. It is the oldest mistake in governing money: raid what you have saved to buy a moment’s applause and call the spending generosity.
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A plan that spends the people’s savings to send the people away is not bold. It is foolish.
Now consider the other $10,000. Through Alaska Housing Finance Corp., the state offers families up to $10,000 to build a new, energy-efficient home. AHFC raids nothing. It earns its own way. Over the years, it has returned more than $2 billion to the state treasury, and it spends some of that income the way any good business does: to win a customer.
Here, the customer is an Alaskan who wants to own a home, put down roots and stay.
That is the oldest sound move in business: Invest a little of what you earn to bring in someone who stays. The homeowner remains, the community gains a family and the corporation keeps earning. The money spent comes back. A plan that puts earnings to work to bring people home is not charity. It is clever.
Same amount. Opposite source. Opposite wisdom. One spends savings; the other spends earnings. One pays Alaskans to leave; the other pays them to stay. One empties the state; the other fills it.
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This Homeownership Month, the choice is the size of a single check, and the whole question is where the check comes from and what it asks of you. Ten thousand dollars of your own fund, to wave you goodbye. Or $10,000, earned and reinvested, to help you stay and build.
Evan Swensen is the publisher of Publication Consultants in Anchorage and the author of “What’s the Money For: A Permanent Fund Mortgage Proposal.”
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