Western Alaska Storm Damage Estimated To Be At Least $125 Million, Long Road To Recovery

By Corinne Smith

(Alaska Beacon) -- Rep. Nellie Jimmie, a Democrat from Toksook Bay, broke down in tears recounting her experience there the night ex-Typhoon Halong made landfall on the west coast of Alaska in October. 

“We didn’t sleep the whole night, and this was the first time I’ve ever felt so helpless, where I knew I couldn’t protect my own daughter,” she told fellow lawmakers at a joint hearingwith the House Tribal Affairs and Community and Regional Affairs committees on Tuesday. 

“Just by chance, my daughter, she came upon TikTok, where people were posting live from Kipnuk about their water coming in quickly, and their homes were floating away. And people were trapped in their houses, and even though they called for help, they couldn’t get help,” she said tearfully.

Bryan Fisher, director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, presented an update to lawmakers and said that according to a recent FEMA assessment, the storm damage is estimated to cost $125 million. He called the storm damage “catastrophic and stressed that the figure is an early estimate.

“I would suspect, just based on my experience doing this for a long time, that that dollar figure is going to go up,” he said.

He said with the scale of destruction, the rebuilding effort will take years. 

Fisher noted that the disaster recovery from Typhoon Merbok that hit in 2022 cost the state roughly $170 million in damage. 

The October storms devastated Western Alaska coastal communities, damaging thousands of structures, roads, airports and critical infrastructure, and prompting thousands to evacuate to other villages, Bethel and Anchorage. The relief effort was also cut off by the onset of winter, Fisher added, and so when breakup occurs in the spring, recovery efforts will begin anew.

Jimmie said she visited the hardest-hit communities of Kipuk and Kwigillingok in the weeks after the storm and also visited with families displaced to Anchorage where they had evacuated with only one suitcase per person. She thanked state emergency officials and legislators gathered at the hearing.

“I know it’s going to be a long recovery, and I know the trauma that we have suffered out there. But how do you leave a village where your ancestors came from? Where grandmothers, grandfathers passed down the knowledge of where to hunt, when to hunt, how to process the subsistence catch. There’s just so much loss,” she said. “I just hope we get as much assistance as we can to rebuild.” 

Fischer, who has spent over 30 years in emergency management in Alaska, said the storm was unlike anything he has seen here. “I didn’t think in my lifetime I would see a flooding disaster or coastal storm disaster in Alaska that looked very similar to Hurricane Katrina, with the military and Coast Guard helicopters doing hoist rescues,” he told lawmakers. But unlike Hurricane Katrina, he added, homes were displaced from their foundations and washed away upwards of 10 or 12 miles away.

Fisher emphasized the state disaster response is a coordinated effort in partnership with local and tribal governments, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and a variety of state agencies from health to transportation, education, and environmental conservation. 

“And all of the agencies are going to be in this as long as it takes to make sure we can get you home, back to where you want to be,” he said, following Jimmie’s testimony. “And back on kind of the new normal moving forward.”

A ‘significant’ clean up planned for summer 2026

Fisher said this summer multiagency disaster crews will undertake a “very significant cleanup mission” to remove hazardous waste, repair water and sewer systems and stabilize communities. They will also collect home heating oil tanks and contaminated soil from both petroleum products and household hazardous waste, he said. 

“The water systems in the communities were compromised, including with salt water intrusion, which is going to take significant time to get a reverse osmosis water purification unit to scale out in the community to start reproducing safe drinking water,” he said.

“So there are a whole lot of things that need to happen that weren’t able to get done before winter came and freeze-up came in Southwest Alaska.”

For the hardest hit communities of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, Fisher said the tribal councils have asked residents not to return until those critical repairs have been completed.

While some communities are working on repairs through the winter, Fisher said the state is waiting on additional FEMA approval for rebuilding homes next summer. 

“If approved, that will allow us to rebuild homes, that will allow us to provide labor and shipping support and material support, and financial support to repair homes above what is the traditional maximum amount of financial assistance a homeowner can receive,” he said. 

Currently FEMA is providing disaster assistance of up to $44,800 per household for replacement of personal property, and $44,800 for repairing homes. 

“The sheer number of homes that have been destroyed and displaced, and need to either be rebuilt or repaired, that is not an effort that’s going to take a single summer construction season to occur,” he said. 

Fisher told lawmakers that one piece of good news is that homes and boardwalks built on pilings withstood the storm. “So I think that’s a testament we know how to engineer and design and build both infrastructure and homes in the area that are resilient to flooding disasters,” he said.

Fisher emphasized that the goal for rebuilding and recovery is to stabilize communities as they continue ongoing discussions around long term resilience, and whether to relocate to higher ground. 

“The state disaster programs and FEMA disaster programs do not relocate entire communities. That’s not what they were designed for,” he said.

He said FEMA and the state will repair and rebuild to make sure communities are ready for future storms. “And really that is in order to buy the community’s time to have that longer discussion, if they choose, about whole community relocation.” 

Residents in Kwigillingok have voted to relocate, but Kipnuk is divided on whether to move to higher ground. The process is likely to take years. 

Hundreds of residents still displaced

Officials estimate more than 1,600 people were displaced by the storms. In Anchorage, almost 100 displaced residents moved into longer term housing around Feb. 1, according to a division update. 

As of Thursday, there are 381 people from 73 households sheltering in hotels — a significant decrease from the peak of over 680 people in November. 

Fisher said the state is working with partner organizations to continue to support families finding and settling into long term housing. “It’s a long, intensive process to get folks their deposits and get background checks for the landlords and furnish those apartments so they have utensils and furniture,” he said. “We’re continuing to do that, and we expect folks to stay in those apartments until we can clean up the communities and rebuild their homes and get them back home.”

Fisher said FEMA is providing rental assistance for families that are moving into apartments.

Fisher thanked tribal and community organizations for coordinating events and donations of traditional and subsistence foods for those displaced. He said the state also negotiated with FEMA to allow household disaster assistance to cover traditional foods. 

“That is a unique consideration and approval we got from FEMA that recognizes the criticality of subsistence food for our communities,” he said. “It obviously doesn’t replace everything that was lost, but it’s assistance that residents of this country in other states don’t get. So I’m glad that’s out there, and that FEMA supports that for us, recognizes that need.”

As of Thursday, FEMA has distributed $33.5 million in individual and household assistance, and $30.3 million in other needs assistance, which includes lost personal property, transportation, medical or moving costs, according to an agency update. FEMA has also awarded $3.19 million for housing assistance. 

FEMA reported $4.6 million distributed in public assistance grants, which provides support to state, local, tribal or non-profit groups responding to disasters. 

Over 1,800 households have registered for federal assistance with FEMA, and over 2,100 people have registered for state assistance to date, according to a state division spokesperson. 

Funding for West Coast storm recovery under debate

In the weeks ahead, lawmakers will vote on Gov. Dunleavy’s supplemental budget, which asks for $40 million in additional disaster relief funding for this year. Fisher answered lawmakers’ questions on Tuesday, and thanked the legislature for continuing to support the state’s disaster relief operations. 

By law, the governor’s office is required to deliver all supplemental budget requests to the legislature by Feb. 15. In practice, lawmakers have allowed changes months later, occasionally as late as the last week of the legislative session.

“As soon as we have a finalized number, we’ll bring that forward,” said Lacey Sanders, director of the state’s Office of Management and Budget, testifying Wednesday in the House Finance Committee.

The state is still calculating its need after the Trump administration denied 100% federal reimbursement for the first three months of the disaster response and granted the state only a 75-25 split of the costs. 

Sanders said the Alaska Department of Military and Veterans Affairs is appealing the 75-25 federal-state split “to try and get a 90-10 breakdown. I don’t believe they have heard a response back yet,” she said. 

“If we receive additional information or feedback from the federal government regarding the disaster and whether we need to inject more funding, we’ll bring that before the committee as well,” she said.

Fisher told lawmakers that while there are uncertainties with federal changes under the Trump administration, he and other emergency managers foresee that states will have to take on more disaster costs and relief efforts.

“There is potential that the buck is going to be passed on to state and local and tribal governments more than it has been traditionally,” he said. 

“So I think the legislature needs to be prepared to consider the fact that we may have to deal with more of these disasters on our own, and that’s going to be a tough reality for all states and all localities across the country.”