He said the district is using supplies from its school lunch program and has plenty of food to feed people for now. The school has its own power generator, which kept running when a power outage hit the rest of Hooper Bay. “We have people that are safe and warm,” he said. He credits community leaders for pulling people together. “I could only imagine what Hooper Bay and Scammon Bay were going through, because their winds were 25-35 miles an hour greater than what ours were,” said Stone, who is relieved that there have been no fatalities or injuries. But the damage wasn’t nearly as bad as it was in Hooper Bay. It knocked storage sheds down, stripped siding off of buildings and peeled back the roof of the old Covenant church. Stone works out of the district’s headquarters in the Yukon River community of Mountain Village, which was pounded with 40 mile an hour winds on Friday night. The district was also sheltering about 70 people from Kotlik, a community northeast of Hooper Bay. About 300 hundred were expected on Saturday. He said about 110 people spent the night at the Hooper Bay school on Friday. Gene Stone, the superintendent, said the district has been providing food, shelter and basic necessities at the school. In the Lower Yukon School District, all eyes are on Hooper Bay, a community that hugs the Bering Sea Coast. Mike Dunleavy issued a disaster declaration Saturday morning for affected communities.īelow is our live blog, reported in collaboration with KYUK and KTOO, of accounts on Saturday from Alaskans impacted by the storm, as they took stock of the damage and as some braced for the weather to worsen.ħ p.m.: Hooper Bay, the hardest hit school in the Lower Yukon The storm destroyed Shaktoolik’s berm, all that stands between the village and the salt-water waves. “We are pretty heartbroken,” said Shaktoolik Mayor Lars Sookiayak. In Napakiak, Job Hale said, “It’s just a lake everywhere.” “This is the first time I’ve seen it this bad,” said Alvina Imgalrea in Chevak. In other communities, the storm overwhelmed efforts. In some communities, local leaders’ early actions helped residents do what they needed to move valuable vehicles and boats to higher ground. Hundreds of people across multiple communities are sheltering in schools, which are serving as emergency evacuation centers. “In some places, this is clearly the worst storm in living memory,” said University of Alaska Fairbanks climatologist Rick Thoman. Forecasters had predicted earlier this week that it could be one of the worst storms to hit Alaska’s western coast in recent history. The storm is the remnants of what was Typhoon Merbok. National Weather Service climatologist Brian Brettschneider described the storm on Saturday as the “worst-case scenario.” Major flooding in Hooper Bay on Saturday. As levels drop, more damage will be revealed. The water has begun receding in many areas, but further north, the peak of the storm surge is forecast to hit later Saturday night. Alaskans described water flooding homes and roads. (Courtesy Josephine Daniels)Ī historically powerful storm slammed into Western Alaska Friday night and into Saturday, bringing major flooding and high winds to a huge swath of coastal communities.īy Saturday evening, the state said it had received no reports of injuries or deaths related to the storm.īut damage had torn across hundreds of miles of Alaska’s coastline impacting communities all along the way. A massive storm battering Western Alaska brought floodwaters to the steps of the local school in Golovin on Saturday.
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