More than 400 Alaska residents are sheltering in school without working toilets after storms

Fierce storms caused by the remnants of a typhoon have devastated two Alaskan villages on the state’s west coast, driving more than 1,500 people from their homes, with more wind and rain forecast on Wednesday.

About 1,000 residents are sleeping in two local schools—one of which doesn’t have working toilets, and the other, which has intermittent electricity and plumbing issues —according to local reports.

Amid the wreckage, the Coast Guard airlifted over 20 people from their homes after they floated out to sea in a record-breaking storm surge. Three people were missing or dead, authorities said.

High winds, rain, and storm surges caused by the tail end of Typhoon Halong had a severe impact on the low-lying Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, where the villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok saw “nearly every home” damaged, destroyed, or swept away. Both towns are around 500 miles west of Anchorage.

In Kwigillingok, some 400 people were sheltering at the school, without functioning toilets, according to the Alaska Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.

Meanwhile, almost 600 were staying at the school in Kipnuk, where the plumbing wasn’t working correctly, and electricity was limited, according to local news outlet KYUK.

Neither of the villages is on the road system, with the only usual means of reaching them being by sea or air. Meanwhile, rescue efforts have been hampered as some airports are closed to fixed-wing planes, while some power plants and phone systems are down, making communications particularly difficult.

“It’s catastrophic in Kipnuk. Let’s not paint any other picture,” Mark Roberts, incident commander with the state emergency management division, told journalists on Tuesday.

“We are doing everything we can to continue to support that community, but it is as bad as you can think.”

He said that teams have begun evacuating the medically vulnerable to the nearby town of Bethel.

“We're moving as fast as we can,” he told KYUK. “We know that folks are miserable.”

According to the Alaska National Guard, the U.S. Coast Guard has rescued a total of 34 people, the Alaska Army National Guard has rescued nine people, the Alaska Air National Guard has rescued eight individuals and two dogs.

Among those awaiting evacuation to Bethel on Tuesday was Brea Paul, of Kipnuk, who told the Associated Press in a text message that she had seen about 20 homes floating away through the moonlight on Saturday night.

“Some houses would blink their phone lights at us like they were asking for help, but we couldn’t even do anything,” she wrote.

The following morning, she recorded a video of a house submerged nearly to its roofline as it floated past her home.

Paul and her neighbors had a long meeting in the local school gym on Monday night. They sang songs as they tried to figure out what to do next, she said. Paul wasn’t sure where she would go.

“It’s so heartbreaking saying goodbye to our community members, not knowing when we’d get to see each other,” she said.

About 30 miles away in Kwigillingok, one woman was found dead, and authorities on Monday night called off the search for two men whose home floated away.

A preliminary assessment showed that every home in the village was damaged, with about three dozen having drifted from their foundations, according to the emergency management office.

Power systems were flooded in Napakiak, and severe erosion was reported in Toksook Bay. In Nightmute, officials reported that fuel drums were floating in the community, and there was a scent of fuel in the air and a sheen on the water.

The Independent has contacted the Governor for Alaska’s office, the Alaska National Guard, and the schools where people are sheltering for further comment.