The remnants of a massive Pacific typhoon that battered a thousand-mile stretch of western Alaska was dissipating Sunday morning, as it continued posing risks to communities on the Northwest Arctic coast. Communities to the south begin assessing damage from one of the worst storms on record.
"The climax is done," said National Weather Service meteorologist Kaitlyn Lardeo. "It is a weakening system."
The system will continue moving north, where it's expected to stall and rapidly weaken in the Chukchi Sea. According to Lardeo, the storm could still flood communities north of Kotzebue, including Kivalina, Point Hope, and Wainwright.
"The next hazards we're looking at is sea level rise for portions of the northwest coast," she said.
The storm is what's left of what was Typhoon Merbok, which formed farther east in the Pacific Ocean than where such storms typically appear.
"The storm is still taking place, and we're still working with communities in the Northwest Arctic Borough that are receiving impacts from the storm," said Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management spokesman Jeremy Zidek.
Parts of Kotzebue were flooded late Saturday and into Sunday morning, with residents of some low-lying parts of town sheltering elsewhere overnight.
Further south, water levels were coming down in communities at the mouths of the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers, Norton Sound and the Seward Peninsula.
"They've passed their climaxes for this event, which was either yesterday afternoon or overnight," Lardeo said. "It's either going to be a slow decent or the water's just gonna start coming down."
The extreme weather had largely subsided along the Kuskokwim River by Sunday morning, without new notices of flooding overnight.
"We haven't received any further reports since this morning," said meteorologist Nicole Sprinkles with the weather service. "Everything should be starting to recede and kinda winding down."
As the worst of the wind and flooding subsides, the state's Emergency Operation Center is assessing the damage, gathering reports of battered infrastructure and property from communities up and down the Bering Sea coast. Some of the most severe damage was reported in Chevak, Hooper Bay, Newtok, Nome, Shaktoolik and Golovin.
"The communities that were getting hit hard yesterday, that's where we're seeing a lot of the damages," Zidek said. "There's a lot of impacts all across the region. We understand that there's damage to residences, that there's damage to infrastructure in many communities and the recovery process is going to be widespread."
A major fire Saturday night in Nome reduced a popular restaurant on Front Street to ash. Driving through tire-high water, members of the Nome Volunteer Fire Department tore down the Bering Sea Bar and Grill as it was burning to keep the fire from spreading to a nearby hotel and apartment building, according to resident Trish Stang. The fire was whipped by high winds.
One of the issues facing state emergency responders is that telecommunication coverage in some communities is inconsistent, dropping out because of impacts to infrastructure or loss of local power sources.
"Has communications been impacted? yes," Zidek said. "Is power impacts? Yes. To what degrees? That's really a changing and evolving situation."
As of Sunday morning, the status of air strips across the region was not fully known. Several runways were reportedly inundated Saturday and could not accept aircraft. According to Zidek the state is working to determine the extent of damage and debris on infrastructure that will be crucial to moving in supplies and personnel in the days ahead.
Gov. Mike Dunleavy issued a state disaster declaration on Saturday. A request for a federal declaration, which would potentially activate additional resources, has not yet been made, though could be as further assessment is done.
"It's going to be a phased approach. We're gonna try to deal with the immediate needs first," Zidek said.
