A Year After Floodwaters Swept Away an Alaskan Native Village, Residents Remain in Limbo
Lucy Martin was among the last to leave Kwigillingok as the water rose, and a year later she's still in Bethel. That's the kind of detail that should stop you cold. A whole village, a quarter mile from the Bering Sea, was effectively erased by Typhoon Halong, and the people who lived there are now scattered, waiting on decisions that haven't come.
Kwigillingok is one of many coastal Alaska villages facing this threat as storms get stronger and sea ice retreats. The Yup'ik community has deep roots in that place, and relocation carries the weight of maintaining a way of life, hunting grounds, language, and social ties. The fact that the tribal resilience coordinator herself is still in limbo tells you how little progress has been made.
I'd want to know what the holdup is. Funding? Political will? The difficulty of finding a safe site? Those are different problems with different solutions, and the people of Kwigillingok deserve a straight answer. A year is a long time to be suspended between a destroyed home and an uncertain future.