The Morning After: Salt, Silence and the Long Work of Remembering
When I arrived on the fringes of the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in the dull light after the storm, the air tasted of old ocean and new sorrow. Driftwood and smashed household goods lay in tangled piles. A child’s bright pink boot bobbed in a puddle the size of a living room. In places where houses once stood, there were only twisted foundations and the faint outline of a life that had been hauled away in minutes by a wall of water.
“It was like someone took the map of where we lived and erased it,” said Captain Christopher Culpepper of the US Coast Guard, who has been coordinating search-and-rescue teams. “Absolute devastation in Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. We are still counting and consoling.”
The scenes were stark, but not unfamiliar to people who know Alaska’s coastlines. What was different—and alarming—was the force behind it. The remnants of Typhoon Halong, a storm born thousands of miles across the Pacific, pushed a record-setting tide and surf into communities nearly 800 kilometers from Anchorage. In villages built by families who have lived here for generations, the surge swept away homes—some reportedly with people still inside—and forced 1,500 residents into makeshift shelters that now smell faintly of salt and wood smoke.
Communities on the Edge
Kipnuk and Kwigillingok together account for nearly 1,100 souls. They are largely Yup’ik communities where subsistence fishing, hunting and shared labor create a social fabric as integral to survival as canned goods and heated shelters. Now, with winter’s breath creeping closer, that fabric is at risk.
“There’s more than houses here,” said Mary Akau, a community elder from Kwigillingok, her voice small but steady. “Our stores, our smokehouses, the nets—everything gone. How do you tell a child that there will be less fish next spring?”
This is not simply a story of infrastructure. It’s a story about cultural continuity. The storm didn’t just displace bodies; it sent centuries of seasonal knowledge—where to set nets, where to haul boats, where to dry salmon—careening into uncertain waters.
An Airlift the State Hasn’t Seen in Decades
By midweek, the Alaska Air National Guard and the Coast Guard had launched what officials are calling one of the most significant airlifts in the state’s modern history. Planes and helicopters ferried hundreds out of affected villages to larger hubs where shelters, medical care and coordination centers are being set up.
“We are moving people as fast as we can,” said Lisa Haines, a state emergency manager. “The remoteness of these communities makes every rescue complicated—runways are small, weather changes quickly, and resources are not where they need to be. But we know this is urgent. Winter is coming.”
What rescuers face is both logistical and human. Remote airstrips are waterlogged or clogged with debris. Boats that once ferried supplies are missing or damaged. And the emotional toll is visible in the hollowed eyes of parents, the thin smiles of teenagers, and the stiff shoulders of elders who have seen storms but never like this.
Numbers That Matter
Here are some of the figures officials have shared so far:
- 1,500 residents sheltering in temporary facilities.
- Nearly 800 kilometers from Anchorage—the great distance that complicates any rescue effort.
- One confirmed death and two people still missing as rescue teams continue their search.
- Combined population of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok: approximately 1,100.
Each number is more than a statistic. Each number is a life, a family, a winter’s worth of food or a generator that heats a house. Each is a thread in a community tapestry that will take months—maybe years—to reweave.
The Broader Picture: Storms, Warming, and the Arctic Paradox
It is tempting to separate this tragedy from climate conversations playing out in conference rooms thousands of miles away. But these events are stitched into the same global cloth. Alaska is warming roughly twice as fast as the global average, a shift that changes sea ice rhythm, storm tracks and the very way communities on the coast must prepare.
“When sea ice retreats and the ocean is warmer, storms can ride farther inland and carry more energy,” explained Dr. Emily Rivera, a climate scientist who studies Arctic systems. “These aren’t isolated incidents. The interaction of warming and changing storm patterns increases vulnerability for coastal populations.”
For the people of the Delta, the hardest months are almost upon them: a short, dark season where generators, fuel, and stored food are lifelines. Many families store fish and meat outdoors in traditional caches; those stores can be wiped out by inundation. For subsistence communities, losing a year’s harvest is not an inconvenience—it is a threat to survival.
Voices from the Ground
In a crowded shelter, a teacher named Jonas Malluk passed a thermos and said, “We teach the children to be proud of where they’re from. Now we have to teach them resilience. But resilience should not be a requirement of poverty.”
A volunteer paramedic who helped with the airlift, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the rescue as the opposite of glamour. “It’s long nights, cold coffee, counting names, listening to people cry in corners. You do the job because someone has to. But you wonder—how many times can a place be rebuilt before the people ask to move?”
Immediate Needs and the Long Road
As the initial search and evacuation wind down, what rises up is a long list of needs: temporary housing, medical care, mental health support, food and fuel, and—perhaps most pressingly—plans for both short-term recovery and long-term resilience.
Local leaders and state officials have emphasized the need for sustained support, not just a brief rush of attention. “We can drop supplies today,” one official said, “but unless plans are made for next year and the years after, this will repeat.”
- Immediate: shelter, food, medical care, evacuation assistance.
- Short-term: debris removal, infrastructure assessment, repair of airstrips and fuel lines.
- Long-term: community-driven resilience planning, possibly including relocation strategies, funding for protective infrastructure, and support for subsistence ways of life.
What Can We Learn—and Do?
When you hear about distant storms, do you think of a headline and move on? Try this instead: imagine a child in a tiny village whose grandparents have lived in the same place for 100 years, suddenly told that winter might bring cold they cannot guard against. What would you do if that were your relative?
There are no easy answers. But there are steps communities and systems can take—more weather-ready infrastructure, better emergency airlift capacity, and, ultimately, climate mitigation that reduces the extreme swings we are witnessing.
As the people of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok begin the slow, communal work of clearing and rebuilding, an old Yup’ik proverb seemed to hang in the air: “We are the sum of each other’s hands.” In the weeks ahead, those hands will be many—local neighbors, tribal leaders, state agencies, and volunteers from across Alaska and beyond.
If you’re reading this, consider this an invitation: stay informed, support trusted relief organizations working with Native communities, and hold policymakers to promises of resilience funding. Hurricane-force weather on the margins of the Arctic is not an isolated curiosity—it is a signal. How we respond now will shape the stories those communities tell their children next year.
