The Challenges of Emergency Response in Alaska's Arctic Villages

Strong floodwaters can uproot buildings and the infrastructure first responders need to reach victims. But what if there are no roads in the first place?

Typhoon Halong struck the west coast of Alaska on Oct. 11. Flooding overwhelmed remote villages — communities accessible only by air or water. The coast guard commander for the region compared the impact to Hurricane Katrina.

“This took homes off of foundations,” he said at a press briefing. “This took people into peril, where folks were swimming, floating, trying to find debris to hold onto in the cover of darkness.”
The flooding was some of the worst the state has ever seen, says Bryan Fisher, director of homeland security and emergency management for the state of Alaska. The storm displaced more than 1,500 people in coastal communities and killed at least one. Emergency responders airlifted nearly 600 of them to Bethel and Anchorage for temporary shelter. These rescues — and the rebuilding to come — were complicated by the unique challenges of living in the Arctic.

"It's different up here," Fisher says. "All these impacted communities are hundreds and hundreds of miles away from a road system."

The remote communities of Kipnuk, population 715, and Kwigillingok, population 380, were hit hardest by flooding. Water rose more than 6 feet above the tide line. The flooding arrived in darkness, and some were jolted awake to find their houses floating. Some drifted for miles.

Both of these villages can only be reached by boat or plane. The infrastructure within them is also unique. The “roads” are boardwalks, traveled by all-terrain vehicles. Snow machines provide transportation in the winter, when frozen rivers create highways of ice that trucks use to deliver fuel. These are subsistence-based economies, Fisher says. Boats are a survival necessity. Residents fish, hunt whale and walrus and pick berries in order to survive through the winter. Freezers were full of such sustenance when the flood struck.
Ninety-five percent of the structures in Kipnuk were destroyed, Fisher says. Nearly every home in both it and Kwigillingok is now uninhabitable. Though sea storms are common, none had wiped out entire communities before Typhoon Halong, Fisher says.

The Alaska National Guard and Coast Guard were called into service. "The sheer amount of individuals and their families and pets that have had to be evacuated to urban Alaska is greater by far than anything I've seen in the 31 years I've been in my job," Fisher says.

A Symphony of Logistics

State and city officials in Anchorage are working to find longer-term housing options for flood victims, from hotels and dormitories to rental housing. Those who have been displaced face a long wait before they will be able to return.

Fisher has been in his job for more than three decades. This isn’t the first time it’s been necessary to rebuild in a community the roads don’t reach. Galena, a village in the middle of Alaska on the Yukon River that isn’t reachable by land, was largely destroyed in 2013 when snow melt caused the river to overflow its banks. The waters were so high that some residents reported houses had been “flipped over.”
Rebuilding took time. “We had displaced residents for upwards of 18 months,” Fisher says.

For now, he’s focused on the rapid repairs in communities affected by Halong that lie along the road system. This means winterizing homes that are still viable so they will be safe and habitable over the coming winter and restoring lifeline infrastructure and utilities.
It’s a different matter to rebuild a community 500 miles from the closest Home Depot, where there are no roads, Fisher says. Barges that can carry material for construction won’t be able to sail until the spring.
 
“We will have this gigantic, coordinated symphony of logistics planning all winter,” Fisher says. This will ensure that when the ice goes away and barges can start sailing, those first barges have the materials to begin rebuilding homes and infrastructure.

“It’s the Arctic,” Fisher says. “You can’t live without fuel and food, and water, heat and power in many of these communities — there are pretty substantial challenges we might not see in the lower 48.”