Copyright Anchorage Daily News
All evacuees recently sent to mass shelters in Anchorage after a devastating Western Alaska storm forced them from their homes have been placed in longer-term, non-congregate housing, officials said Friday. “This transition will help families as they continue to put their lives back together,” said Bryan Fisher, director of the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, in a statement. Earlier in October, ex-Typhoon Halong displaced scores of residents from their Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta communities after the storm’s powerful winds and flooding severely damaged or destroyed homes and infrastructure across the region. A mass evacuation effort resulted in more than 650 people arriving in Anchorage in the storm’s wake, with many ending up in mass shelters at Anchorage’s Alaska Airlines Center and Egan Civic and Convention Center while officials looked for more suitable long-term shelter situations. On Friday, the State Emergency Operations Center said it had finished moving all evacuees — 379 people in total — who had been staying at Anchorage’s two mass shelters into hotels and closed the spaces. Evacuees who had been sheltering in Bethel have also been placed in non-congregate housing, the State Emergency Operations Center said in a separate Friday statement. Some shelters will remain in “standby status for the coming days” to accept potential evacuees before placement into non-congregate settings, according to the State Emergency Operations Center. Officials started moving hundreds of evacuees from congregate shelter spaces in Anchorage into longer-term housing earlier this week while in Western Alaska, crews raced to clean up and winterize communities, or conduct basic repairs in villages, so displaced residents can start returning home. It’s unclear how long evacuees will remain in the long-term shelters, said Vivian Korthuis, CEO of the Association of Village Council Presidents. “It’s very stressful right now, but in the long run, things will work out, and we just need to keep on moving forward,” she said. AVCP, a regional nonprofit that supports and advocates for the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta’s 56 tribes, held a media briefing Friday afternoon to detail its current relief work in affected communities and long-term disaster response priorities. The organization, alongside others like the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp., Alaska Organized Militia and Alaska Division of Forestry and Fire Protection, has been working to make homes and communities livable since officials wrapped up mass evacuations. “These relief efforts are not a short-term thing,” said AVCP spokesperson Dendra Chavez. “This is going to be a long-term effort that we’re all working on.” While work continues in villages for displaced residents to return, officials said they will continue to help evacuees who have moved into longer-term shelter housing in Anchorage access disaster recovery services and financial assistance. Other resources, like a Midtown Anchorage disaster resource assistance center, will also remain open, Fisher said in a statement. “We will continue to work with organizations providing services to storm survivors to ensure their needs are met,” he said. As of Friday, 1,177 people affected by the storm had applied for state disaster recovery aid, while more than 320 had applied for individual federal aid unlocked by President Donald Trump’s Oct. 22 federal disaster declaration, according to a State Emergency Operations Center statement.
