As we enter this holiday season, it is important to recognize and give thanks to the countless Alaskans who helped in Western Alaska’s emergency response to Typhoon Halong. In doing so, you helped preserve the dignity of your fellow Alaskans in need.

At the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. (YKHC), we had medical, behavioral health, construction and remote maintenance teams who worked very long hours and slept in affected villages. We shipped tens of thousands of pounds of critical supplies throughout the region. We set up and managed the Bethel shelter, its travel, meal preparation, laundry and cleaning operations. In future months, we will continue to lead water and sewer rebuilding efforts.

Since October, the daily local/state/federal emergency operations center has been hosted by YKHC at the Bethel hospital. YKHC helped lead and coordinate the local emergency operations center with other local agencies until the beginning of November and has since transitioned out of that role. YKHC assisted the Alaska National Guard and Coast Guard and evacuated more than 100 residents from affected villages to safe places of their choosing with more than 50 YKHC charter flights. We shipped more than 22,000 bottles of water, 12,000 ready-to-eat meals and other supplies throughout the region. Most of that was accomplished within the first five days after the storm.

We hosted Sen. Dan Sullivan, Sen. Lyman Hoffman, Rep. Nellie Jimmie, Speaker Bryce Edgmon, and other state and federal officials at YKHC for disaster coordination meetings. The state emergency operations center moved more than 600 evacuees out of the shelters to hotels and other noncongregate lodging by Oct. 31 — which for disasters, must be in record time. Hundreds more were taken in by family members from around the region, Anchorage or beyond.

I thank all 1,600 YKHC employees who helped survivors of Typhoon Halong. Your dedication and devotion toward achieving our mission and vision is applauded.

A special thank you to the Alaska National Guard and Coast Guard for their heroic and life-saving missions during the storm and those that continue today in order to help ready survivors’ homes for winter. The professionalism, urgency and compassion shown by the Guard, President Trump, Gov. Dunleavy, state of Alaska emergency operations center, FEMA, the Alaska Divisions of Forestry and Transportation, American Red Cross, AVCP, AVCP RHA, City of Bethel, Lower Kuskokwim School District, Samaritan’s Purse, Team Rubicon, World Kitchen, airline/cargo operators, local churches and businesses, the Municipality of Anchorage and many others is truly commended.

While recovery and repatriation will continue for months and years, if Alaskans continue to act with the same resolve as we did with this emergency response, more can be accomplished in the future.

Although many lost much during this tragedy, each of us still has much more to be thankful for during this holiday season.

Dan Winkelman is president and CEO of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp.

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A series of violent crimes in Fairbanks, all in the past month, has prompted the Alaska State Troopers to deploy a team of investigators from Anchorage and Mat-Su to focus on several unsolved cases and ongoing searches for suspects.

Two people were killed in Fairbanks in cases reported within an hour of each other early Saturday. A few days earlier, authorities say, someone fired shots at two trucks involved in a gold-hauling operation in the Fairbanks area. And the search continues for an 18-year-old wanted on murder charges in the death of a teenager at a Fairbanks party in late October.

The decision to send investigators as well as support staff from Southcentral to the Interior city comes in response to “the level of violent criminal activity in Fairbanks in such a short period of time,” Department of Public Safety spokesman Austin McDaniel said Tuesday.

The troopers are the lead investigative agency on all four of the cases and are adding to their existing staffing. The agency’s post in Fairbanks includes a major crime unit composed of a sergeant and six investigators, McDaniel said. The total additional staffing is under a dozen people, he said.

Troopers made a fairly immediate arrest in one of the homicides on Saturday: Brooklyn Whitman, 27, is charged with first-degree murder. Whitman is accused of firing a pistol through an apartment door, killing a woman who lived there with several young children, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case. The two had been involved in a relationship; the woman’s neighbors described hearing prior altercations and Whitman banging on the door that morning, the complaint said.

The other homicide that morning remains unsolved: 37-year-old Michael Boyd was found dead in the driver’s seat of a vehicle parked near a gas station in the Farmer’s Loop area, troopers said in an online dispatch. Boyd died of a gunshot wound, McDaniel said Tuesday.

Troopers are also involved in two ongoing searches for suspects in attempted murder and murder cases over the past month.

The agency is asking for assistance finding the occupant or occupants of a white Honda Pilot they say fired shots at two Black Gold Transport trucks on the Richardson Highway and near the Steese Highway and Chena Hot Springs Road last week.

They also continue to search for 18-year-old Darius Morgan, wanted on a $1 million warrant for murder in the death of a 15-year-old at a house party on Oct. 25. Witnesses saw him brandishing a black pistol at the party before the teen was shot, according to a criminal complaint filed in that case. Morgan was convicted of second-degree robbery last year and was not supposed to possess any weapons, the complaint said.

It’s possible Morgan is still in Fairbanks or is in Anchorage or the Southcentral area, McDaniel said Tuesday. He is considered armed and dangerous, and anyone who sees him should call 911 rather than approaching him, he said.

The violent crime detail in Fairbanks is part of a change the Alaska Bureau of Investigation made several years ago for unsolved homicides and other serious violent crimes like sexual assaults, McDaniel said. Instead of assigning a small team of case officers to run an investigation, he said, troopers deploy extra investigative resources to make progress more quickly.

“Everyone who wasn’t actively working on their own dynamic violent crime that had time sensitivity was either physically pulled up here or working on other supportive aspects,” McDaniel said. He said some investigators are prepared to stay in Fairbanks “for a significant amount of time.”

Anyone with information about the recent crimes in the Fairbanks area is asked to contact troopers at 907-451-5100.