Evacuees detail harrowing scenes of flooding in coastal Alaska villages
as airlift continues
[October 17, 2025]
By MARK THIESSEN and GENE JOHNSON
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — The house rocked as if an earthquake had
struck, and suddenly it was floating. Water seeped in through the front
door, and waves smacked the big glass window.
From the lone dry room where Alexie Stone and his brothers and children
gathered, he could look outside and see under the water, like an
aquarium. A shed drifted toward them, threatening to shatter the glass,
but turned away before it hit.
The house came to rest just a few feet away from where it previously
stood, after another building blocked its path. But it remains
uninhabitable, along with most of the rest of Stone's Alaska Native
village of Kipnuk, following an immense storm surge that flooded coastal
parts of western Alaska, left one person dead and two missing, and
prompted a huge evacuation effort to airlift more than 1,000 residents
to safety.
“In our village, we’d say that we’re Native strong, we have Native
pride, and nothing can break us down. But this is the hardest that we
went through,” Stone said Thursday outside the Alaska Airlines Center,
an arena in Anchorage, where he and hundreds of others were being
sheltered. “Everybody’s taking care of everybody in there. We’re all
thankful that we’re all alive.”
The remnants of Typhoon Halong brought record high water to low-lying
Alaska Native communities last weekend and washed away homes, some with
people inside. Makeshift shelters were quickly established and swelled
to hold about 1,500 people, an extraordinary number in a sparsely
populated region where communities are reachable only by air or water
this time of year.
Many of the evacuees were flown first to Bethel, a regional hub of 6,000
people. But authorities sought to relocate them as shelters there
approached capacity. Stone and his family spent several nights sleeping
on the floor of the Kipnuk school library before being flown to Bethel
and then on to Anchorage, about 500 miles (805 kilometers) east of the
villages. They arrived strapped into the floor of a huge military
transport plane with hundreds of other evacuees.
A military plane took 266 evacuees from Bethel to Anchorage on Wednesday
and another 210 on Thursday, said Col. Christy Brewer of the Alaska
National Guard. Another flight transported 96 passengers Thursday night,
according to Alex Pena, with the National Guard. More flights were
expected over the next two days.
Anchorage officials were working with the Red Cross to also shelter
people at the Egan Center, a convention venue, as well as possibly two
recreation centers, Mayor Suzanne LaFrance’s office said.
2 villages were hit hard
The hardest-hit communities, Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, saw water levels
more than 6 feet (1.8 meters) above the highest normal tide line. Some
121 homes were destroyed in Kipnuk, a village of about 700 people, and
in Kwigillingok, three dozen homes drifted away.
Cellphone service had been restored in Kwigillingok by Thursday,
authorities said, and restrooms were again working at the school there,
where about 350 people had sheltered overnight Tuesday.
Damage was also serious in other villages. Water, sewer and well systems
were inoperable in Napaskiak, according to a statement from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency.
Jeremy Zidek, a spokesperson with the state emergency management office,
said he did not know how long the evacuation would take and said
authorities were looking for additional shelters. The aim is to get
people from congregate shelters into hotel rooms or dormitories, he
said.
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In this photo provided by the Alaska National Guard, an Alaska Air
National Guard C-17 Globemaster III, assigned to the 176th Wing,
arrives at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska, with evacuated
residents from western Alaska, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025. (Alejandro
Pena/Alaska National Guard via AP)
The crisis unfolding in southwest Alaska has drawn attention to
Trump administration cuts to grants aimed at helping small, mostly
Indigenous villages prepare for storms or mitigate disaster risks.
For example, a $20 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
grant to Kipnuk, which was inundated by floodwaters, was terminated
by the Trump administration, a move challenged by environmental
groups. The grant was intended to protect the boardwalk residents
use to get around the community, as well as 1,400 feet (430 meters)
of river from erosion, according to a federal website that tracks
government spending.
Determined to rebuild
While still in Kipnuk, Stone spent his days trying to help out, he
said. He would make trips to the airport to pick up water or food
that had been sent by other villages, and deliver it to the school.
He worked to help rebuild the boardwalks on which residents get
around. And when he had time, he would return to his battered house,
trying to clean up some of the waterlogged clothing and electronics
the floodwaters had tossed about.
But the damage is extensive. Fuel and stove oil leaked from tanks,
and the odor of petroleum permeates the entire town, he said. Like
other villagers in the region, his family lost stores of food
intended to help them get through the winter — the refrigerator and
three freezers full of halibut, salmon, moose and goose.
Stone's mother, Julia Stone, is a village police officer in Kipnuk.
She was working at the school last weekend when the winds suddenly
picked up, people suddenly began arriving at the building, and her
on-call police cellphone begin ringing with calls from people in
need – some reporting that their houses were floating.
She tried to reach search and rescue teams and others to determine
if there were available boats to help, but the situation was
“chaos,” she said.
Her voice broke during an interview Thursday in Anchorage as she
thanked those at the school who helped with the response. “It’s a
nightmare what we went through, but I thank God we are together,”
she said.
Stone said he evacuated with the clothes on his back. Most of the
rest of what he owned was soaked and reeked of fuel. The Red Cross
provided cots, blankets and hygiene supplies in Anchorage, he said,
and he went out to a thrift store on Thursday to get more clothes:
two shirts, a sweater, two pairs of pants, and tennis shoes.
He is not sure when it might be safe to return to Kipnuk.
“Everybody here that came from Kipnuk, they're pretty strong,” Stone
said. “If we have to start over, we have to start over.”
___
Johnson reported from Seattle. Associated Press writer Becky Bohrer
in Juneau contributed.
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