The storm shredded sea walls, compromised drinking water systems, ripped homes from their foundation, deluged streets in Nome with sea water and left houses filled with silt.
No casualties have been reported in the storm or its aftermath. A boy, missing in Hooper Bay as the storm raged, was later found safe. Otherwise, there didn’t appear to be any reports of people still missing.
On Monday, the governor said the assessment work is being completed to file a federal disaster declaration request, which is expected to be submitted Tuesday. If approved, the federal government would cover up to 75% of eligible disaster costs.In this image provided by the U.S. Coast Guard, a Coast Guard Air Station Kodiak aircrew flies over the Norton Sound village of Golovin to assess damage to houses and facilities on Sunday.
The Department of Transportation said it had surveyed damage to state-owned runways, roads and other infrastructure. The road to Shishmaref’s landfill was damaged, said spokeswoman Shannon McCarthy. A small number of miners and seasonal residents who stay on the far side of the washed-out section will have to rely on airplanes or other creative transportation solutions to transit back into town.Many of the small seasonal camps and cabins used for subsistence by Nome residents are badly damaged, flattened or gone entirely, according to Hammond.
The American Red Cross has 50 volunteers ready to help and will be sent to communities that are most in need. The Red Cross was preparing to send small teams to Bethel and Nome, and then on to smaller villages hit by the storm to survey damage as soon as Monday night, said spokeswoman Taylar Sausen.Most support personnel will have to be flown to these communities since there are few roads in Western Alaska.
The school and clinic were still surrounded by water on Monday, Nedza said. The school’s dry food supply was destroyed because the windows and doors broke during the storm, she said. Nedza said some portions of town had power, while others were still without on Monday. She said on Monday they were trying to get a generator going to save the frozen food for the school.
Henry plans to fly home to Golovin on Wednesday with her baby, Amaktoolik said, but she will live with family until she’s able to clean her home and make it livable again. Tall, the tribal administrator, said he wasn’t surprised the community had largely come through the storm without serious infrastructure damage.The storm pounded dunes along the shoreline of Hooper Bay, peeling away sand. “You can see our dunes are practically gone,” wrote Bradley LakeDamage wrought by the storm is “a good example of how erosion proceeds at all-time scales,” said Rick Thoman, a climate scientist with the University of Alaska Fairbanks.