Western Alaska tribes are resilient, facing increasing perils from climate change as coastal erosion threatens their villages. However, October’s floods are making some wonder how many times they must recover before rebuilding is too much. 

Earlier this month, a powerful coastal storm fueled by the remnants of Typhoon Halong brought wind gusts of up to 100 mph and storm surges, flooding towns and villages in Western Alaska, including the villages of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok. The storm killed at least one and displaced more than a thousand people.

Louise Paul, 61, is a life-long resident of Kipnuk and has been helping her community as a Community Service Representative for the Coastal Villages Region Fund. Coastal flooding and erosion are ongoing threats to this community, and many other villages in Western Alaska.  

1 KILLED, 51 RESCUED IN WESTERN ALASKAN COMMUNITIES DEVASTATED BY FLOODS CAUSED BY TYPHOON HALONG’S REMNANTS

“Every year, we fight the flood. But every year that I’ve lived there, it’s just gotten worse and worse. And this was the worst one,” Paul said. “But the community of Kipnuk was very resilient and… they go back out to the tundra and find their stuff again and reclaim their stuff and help each other rebuild, fix their boardwalks, get their houses up again.”

This storm system and rounds of flooding were different from the annual fall flooding. Paul said the flooding created a devastating domino effect of homes sliding into one another. About 109 homes, out of the 176 in Kipnuk, flooded to a point they moved off the foundation. 

“I got a call saying my house was recoverable, but my house fell off the foundation after being hit by another home. I sat on a pretty good hill, and my house sat pretty high,” Paul recalled. “We got hit by three houses. The third house was a big house, and knocked us off our foundation, and we rocked into the water. And then we hit another big house, and that rocked off their foundation.”

The water in Kipnuk reached 6.6 feet above normal high-tide levels, nearly 2 feet above the previous record set in 2000, according to the National Weather Service. 

If a home is salvageable, damage to other critical property might mean a family can’t return, at least for a while. Flooding damaged freezers and pilot stoves, all-terrain vehicles and boats. Kipnuk is only accessible by boat or airplane.

Paul is among those contemplating not returning to Kipnuk. The most recent Kipnuk tribal council meeting was held in Anchorage, where their new headquarters will be, “since there is no Kipnuk right now,” Paul said.

Paul is staying in Bethel, which is about a 45-minute flight away, but the thought of rebuilding year after year in Kipnuk is weighing on her family. 

“My husband doesn’t want to. He wants to move from there. We could always go out there and go, you know, do our substance hunting when we need to and come back,” Paul said. “But he doesn’t want to continuously be challenged by the environment like this.”

SATELLITE IMAGERY REVEALS WIDESPREAD DESTRUCTION IN ALASKA TOWNS FLOODED BY TYPHOON HALONG REMNANTS

The flooding has reshaped the tundra, and now that snow is falling, the white snow is quickly turning brown for miles after coming into contact with debris and spilled oil and fuel.

“The air is really toxic right now,” Paul said. “It’s a very strong smell of stove oil and gas and food that was spilled.”

Despite the damage, there are those ready to go home. Paul said a small group stayed behind to rebuild the boardwalks, the light plant is operating again and the leak at the gas farm was repaired. A bulldozer and crane arrived in Kipnuk this week via air transport. 

Paul said the people of Kipnuk are proud and can rebuild, but questions if that is what’s best, knowing next fall they might face the same, or worse.  

“This is so much work to think that we’re going to repeat ourselves again. I don’t want to repeat this again. And this was like the worst ever that we’ve seen in Kipnuk and people almost lost their lives,” she said. “I just want to sit down with Kipnuk people as a tribe and say, is it worth returning?”