Authorities started making contact with some of the most remote villages in the United States on Monday to determine the need for food and water and assess damage from a massive weekend storm that flooded communities dotting Alaska’s vast western coast.
No one has been reported injured or killed during the massive storm — the remnants of Typhoon Merbok — as it traveled north through the Bering Strait over the weekend. However, damage to homes, roads and other infrastructure was only starting to be revealed as floodwaters recede.
About 21,000 residents living in the small communities dotting a 1,000-mile (1,609-kilometer) stretch of Alaska’s western coastline — a distance longer than the entire length of the California coastline – were impacted by the storm.
Many homes throughout the region were flooded, and some were knocked off their foundations by the rushing waters propelled by strong winds. Officials were starting the process of determining damage to roads, ports, seawalls and water and sewage systems.
The state transportation department said most airports in the area were open, and officials were making either temporary or permanent repairs to the runways that still have issues, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesperson for the Alaska Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
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