**Severe Flooding in Remote Alaska Villages Forces Long-Term Displacement**
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Damage to remote Alaska villages hammered by flooding last weekend is so extreme that many of the more than 2,000 people displaced won’t be able to return to their homes for at least 18 months, Governor Mike Dunleavy said in a request to the White House for a major disaster declaration.
In one of the hardest-hit villages, Kipnuk, an initial assessment showed that 121 homes—90% of the total—have been destroyed, Dunleavy wrote. In Kwigillingok, where three dozen homes floated away, slightly more than one-third of the residences are uninhabitable.
The remnants of Typhoon Halong struck the area with the ferocity of a Category 2 hurricane, Dunleavy said, sending a surge of high surf into the low-lying region. One person was killed, two remain missing, and rescue crews plucked dozens of people from their homes as they floated away.
Officials have been scrambling to airlift people from the inundated Alaska Native villages. More than 2,000 people across the region have taken shelter in schools within their villages, in larger communities in southwest Alaska, or have been evacuated by military planes to Anchorage.
Dunleavy said he expects more than 1,500 people to be relocated to major cities in the state eventually. In Alaska’s largest city, about 575 individuals have been airlifted by the Alaska National Guard to a sports arena or a convention center, with additional flights expected Friday and Saturday.
Officials are working to move people out of shelters and into short-term, then longer-term housing.
“Due to the time, space, distance, geography, and weather in the affected areas, it is likely that many survivors will be unable to return to their communities this winter,” Dunleavy said. “Agencies are prioritizing rapid repairs.”
The federal government has already been assisting with search and rescue efforts, damage assessments, environmental response, and evacuation support. A major disaster declaration by President Donald Trump could provide federal assistance programs for individuals and public infrastructure, including funding for emergency and permanent work.
The three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation sent a letter to Trump on Friday, urging swift approval of the disaster declaration.
The storm surge pummeled a sparsely populated region off the state’s main road system, where communities are reachable only by air or water this time of year. The villages typically have just a few hundred residents who hunt and fish for much of their food, making relocation to the state’s major cities a vastly different lifestyle.
Alexie Stone, of Kipnuk, arrived in Anchorage on a military jet with his brothers, children, and mother after his home was struck by flooding. They have been staying at the Alaska Airlines Center at the University of Alaska, where the Red Cross provided evacuees with cots, blankets, and hygiene supplies.
“At least for the foreseeable future, I think I might try to find a job at a grocery store; I used to work in one in Bethel,” Stone said Friday. “It’s going to be, try to look for a place and find a job. We’re starting a new life here in Anchorage.”
— Johnson reported from Seattle.
https://abc7.com/post/alaska-evacuations-today-typhoon-storm-devastation-flooding-bad-many-evacuees-go-home-least-18-months-gov-says/18028356/
