At least one person was killed and two were missing after weekend storm battered two Alaska Native communities
At least one person was killed and two were missing after weekend storm battered two Alaska Native communities
More rain and wind were forecast Wednesday along the Alaska 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 south-western part of the state, nearly 500 miles (800km) 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.
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.
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.
