On the night of October 12, the remnants of Typhoon Halong struck Alaska’s western coast with hurricane-force winds reaching up to 105 miles per hour, triggering record storm surges in the Kuskokwim River delta and in settlements south of the Bering Strait. The coastal communities of Indigenous peoples were hit the hardest.
Some villages were almost completely destroyed. In certain areas, the storm surge rose more than six and a half feet above normal. Many residents found themselves in icy water in the middle of the night, desperately clinging to debris to stay afloat.
At least eight houses were torn from their foundations and swept away by the current. The residents of those homes were left in a desperate situation, disoriented and unable to determine where they were, which made it difficult to reach them in time.
Search and rescue operations began at sunrise, once the storm had slightly weakened. People were pulled from flooded homes, and helicopters lifted survivors from rooftops.
The storm severely damaged power and sewage infrastructure across a wide area, as well as key roads and regional airports. Access to many coastal settlements throughout the region was possible only by small aircraft or boats.
More than one thousand people were forced to leave their homes. The disaster claimed one life, and two people remain missing.
A storm of such intensity in Alaska is an extremely rare and anomalous event. Normally, typhoons moving northward lose most of their strength as they pass over cold ocean waters. But this time, a vast marine “heat wave” lay in the path of the weakening Halong, feeding it with additional energy. As a result, the typhoon transformed into a powerful extratropical cyclone, reaching remote parts of Alaska, causing massive destruction, and endangering lives.
Why is our planet experiencing so many climatic anomalies lately, and what is driving them?
You can find a comprehensive explanation in the video “Why Turbulence Is on the Rise? Egon Cholakian on Atmospheric Anomalies and Nanoplastic Pollution.”