1 killed, dozens rescued after storm slams western Alaska leaving thousands displaced

By CNN’s Hanna Park, CNN Meteorologist Mary Gilbert, CNN

(CNN) — Emergency responders in western Alaska are working to help more than a thousand residents displaced after ferocious, hurricane-force wind gusts from what once was Typhoon Halong tore through remote, coastal communities, unleashed record-breaking storm surge and shoved homes completely off their foundations.

At least one person, an adult woman, was found dead in the village of Kwigillingok, which has a population of less than 400, on Monday, the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management said in a statement.

Search efforts for two missing men from the same village have been called off after search and rescue crews found no sign of them, Alaska State Troopers spokesperson Austin McDaniels said in an update to the media Tuesday afternoon.

“We know this is devastating news for the families and loved ones of the two missing people,” McDaniels said. “If new evidence or credible information emerges about the location of the two individuals, we will immediately reassess that information and deploy appropriate resources to investigate and respond.”

Dozens of people and two dogs have been rescued in Kwigillingok and the nearby village of Kipnuk, which has about 700 residents, and more than 1,000 people were displaced to shelters, a local tribal health agency and state officials said Monday.

Dozens of evacuees have been moved to a shelter set up by the National Guard in Bethel, the largest city in western Alaska, but officials are considering moving residents to longer-term emergency housing in Fairbanks and Anchorage as they run out of space, the Associated Press reported.

CNN has reached out to the Alaska National Guard for further details.

Search and rescue efforts in the area involved helicopters rescuing people from the roofs of houses as they were surrounded by several feet of flooding, images reminiscent of rescues conducted during Hurricane Katrina, said US Coast Guard Capt. Christopher Culpepper.

“If you imagine the worst-case scenario, that’s what we are dealing with,” he said.

The sparsely populated villages are more than 400 miles southwest of Anchorage. “Both communities experienced strong winds and heavy flooding overnight, which caused significant damage, including at least eight homes being pushed from their foundations,” Alaska State Troopers said Sunday.

The region, particularly Kipnuk, is severely impacted, according to Mark Roberts, head of the State Emergency Operations Center.

“We are doing everything we can to continue to support that community,” Roberts said Tuesday afternoon. “But it is as bad as you can think.”

Officials are assessing how many properties in each village have been damaged, Roberts said, adding the number of people displaced in the area is large and changing rapidly.

As the storm approached the Alaska coastline late last week, forecast efforts may have been hampered by a lack of weather data triggered by the Trump administration’s cuts to federal agencies earlier this year. Following widespread layoffs at the National Weather Service, there has been a gap in weather balloon coverage in western Alaska. The balloons feed data directly into computer models used to forecast the weather.

However, there were few, if any, balloons to take measurements of what the weather was doing as the system approached Alaska.

The storm generated wind gusts 100 mph or more in western Alaska on Sunday, akin to the gusts Category 1 or 2 hurricanes are capable of. Wind gusts hit 107 mph in Kusilvak while nearby Toksook Bay recorded a gust of 100 mph, according to the National Weather Service.

These winds also drove dangerous storm surge, pushing feet of water onto land, which triggered major flooding in coastal areas. Water levels in Kipnuk soared to 14.5 feet Sunday — more than 2 feet above major flood stage and 1.5 feet above the previous record flood level, set in 2000.

The storm was once Typhoon Halong, a powerful tropical system that formed in the northern Philippine Sea earlier this month, skirted Japan without making landfall and crossed the north Pacific Ocean. It was no longer tropical by the time it entered the Bering Sea this weekend, but that did not eliminate its power.

The storm moved through northern Alaska late Sunday and pushed into the Arctic Sea early Monday, leaving communities to pick up the pieces in its wake.

“Every effort will be made to help those hit by this storm. Help is on the way,” Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a statement Sunday announcing the expansion of a state disaster declaration to include the areas impacted by the weekend storm. He emphasized Monday there will be support for residents in the short term as well as for long-term needs.

The initial declaration, issued Thursday, addressed damage in western Alaska caused by another powerful coastal storm earlier in the week that brought extensive flooding.

Sen. Dan Sullivan of Alaska said he has “been in frequent conversations with Acting FEMA Director David Richardson, and also in contact with local, tribal and state officials, including the Governor, and with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.”

“FEMA is in direct contact with state and local officials and has an incident management team traveling to Alaska as we speak with a FEMA search-and-rescue group pre-positioned in Washington on standby. According to FEMA, the government shutdown is not impacting the agency’s response to this emergency,” Sullivan said in a statement.

This story has been updated with additional information.

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CNN’s Taylor Romine contributed to this report.