About 240 people are in Kipnuk, the Bering Sea village that lost 90% of its buildings when the remnants of Typhoon Halong struck the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta on Oct. 12, 2025. On Sept. 14, the community opened its school again, this time as a shelter, after a new storm system pushed a fresh surge up the delta. About 40% of Kipnuk’s tribal members stayed there overnight as a precaution.
Three people were found dead after Halong’s remnants triggered the largest airlift evacuation in Alaska’s history, and many of the displaced residents are still living in Anchorage almost a year later. The same school that sheltered evacuees Monday night sits at the center of a village where most structures were damaged or destroyed in that single October storm.
Daniel Paul calls the flood ‘a normal one’
Daniel Paul, Council President of the Native Village of Kipnuk, told Alaska’s News Source the school was opened Monday, Sept. 14, for tribal members and construction workers who needed to evacuate over the following several days. “Materials and supplies are secured,” Paul said. High tide peaked at 5 a.m. Tuesday, and Paul said the community reported no damage from what he described as a “normal” flood. “Kipnuk is OK,” he said.
Paul said he felt safe through the night and monitored flood conditions himself, drawing on communication and evacuation lessons the village learned during Halong. The precautionary overnight stay reflected how differently Kipnuk now treats a Bering Sea storm surge compared with a year earlier, when the community had little warning before the water arrived.
The storm system that triggered Monday’s shelter order moved through the Bering Sea overnight, bringing high surf, high winds and rain to communities already weakened by Halong. Forecasters flagged the system days ahead of landfall, giving Kipnuk and neighboring villages the lead time to secure materials, evacuate construction crews to the school and position the community for a surge that, unlike Halong, arrived without warning of destruction on the same scale.
Typhoon Halong erased 90% of Kipnuk last October
Former Typhoon Halong made landfall on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta on Oct. 12, 2025, destroying 90% of Kipnuk and setting off what The Washington Post described as the largest airlift evacuation in Alaska’s history. Three people were found dead in the aftermath. Both Kipnuk and the neighboring village of Kwigillingok have had orders in place since the storm barring tribal members from moving back while restoration work continues.
Many Kipnuk evacuees remain in temporary housing in Anchorage, the state confirmed in April, nearly six months after the storm scattered families across the region. The 240 people now back in the village represent a fraction of Kipnuk’s pre-storm population, most of them workers rebuilding homes damaged or destroyed by Halong.
The village council orders barring a full return exist because the restoration work itself is unfinished and, in places, unsafe: temporary repairs made since Halong were the very infrastructure this week’s surge threatened to undo. That is why the school, rather than individual homes, remains the default shelter whenever a new storm approaches the delta.
Bryan Fisher says the coast is still compromised
Bryan Fisher, director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, said Tuesday that years of work remain to restore the region and fortify its infrastructure against storms like Halong. “So, fortunately, the storm, it looks like the storm coming in tonight isn’t as significant. Nowhere near the level of Halong,” Fisher said. He added that the communities along the coast remain compromised, still carrying significant damage from Halong that has not been repaired or rebuilt, which leaves them at greater risk from flooding storms and typhoon remnants until reconstruction is complete.
Fisher also pointed to the psychological toll each new storm carries for a region still recovering. “So, people are very, very nervous. There’s a lot of trauma associated with the evacuations that occurred during Halong. So every storm is going to raise that anxiety in the entire region,” Fisher said. He said state officials are continuing to communicate as much as possible with residents still displaced and wondering what is happening back home.
Families like the Pauls face a second nervous night
Jamie Paul, evacuated to Anchorage from Kipnuk, said she watched this week’s storm nervously while her daughter stayed behind to help with restoration. “My girl is in Kipnuk,” Paul said. Her family’s split between Anchorage and the village mirrors a pattern reported across the region, where displaced households are slowly, unevenly making their way back to the delta almost a year after Halong scattered them.
The storm surge that pushed water up the delta Monday night peaked well below Halong’s level, and Kipnuk reported no new damage by Tuesday morning. Whether the next storm off the Bering Sea will test the coast’s unrepaired defenses the way Halong did remains the question Fisher and Alaska’s emergency managers say they cannot yet answer, and it is the question that will keep pulling Kipnuk’s tribal members back into the school building every time the forecast turns.
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This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
