In the hours after the remnants of Typhoon Halong hit the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, the Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP) organized a series of calls between community leaders across the region to take stock of the emergency and help coordinate aid.
Now, three weeks later, the organization is looking ahead to the continued relief and repair to the tribal communities it serves.
“The question is, how many more [storms] are in our future?” asked AVCP CEO Vivian Anginran Korthius in a media briefing on Oct. 31. “We want to be as prepared as possible for future storms of this magnitude, and that's why we are proposing to create the infrastructure.”
Korthius said that there’s been a proposal in the works for many years to develop what would be called the Western Alaska Emergency Response System. It would involve a hub response center in Bethel to mobilize and deploy first responders, to and organize aid and shelter. The plan would also include five emergency centers spread across the region to provide localized responses working with the resources coming out of Bethel.
“It will create a centralized position, and it will create more easy collaboration when it comes to responding to emergencies,” explained Coralette Waite, the general council for AVCP.
Korthius said that the need for the project was magnified by the remnant of Typhoon Merbok three years ago. That’s only more true considering the impact of ex-typhoon Halong. Korthius also said that AVCP sees a stronger village public safety officer program as central to regional emergency response.
“In that scenario, we believe that search and rescue efforts, we believe that emergency response efforts, we believe that those safety concerns that exist in every one of our communities would be better addressed if we had that framework in place,” Korthius said.
When discussing what it would take to rebuild, Korthius highlighted that what’s been lost goes beyond property and belongings. It's also subsistence food stores, community burial grounds, and the fabric of a community itself, washed away with the place where generations of personal histories have unfolded.
“When the challenge is to rebuild everything, it literally means everything,” Korthius said.
Korthius said that AVCP is still working to identify the amount of money it may take to respond to storm damage and loss in communities throughout the region.
Since the storm, AVCP has held community meetings, sometimes twice daily, to coordinate emergency efforts. And looking forward, the organization said that it will be at the heart of rebuild operations as communities chart their next steps.
Flood-impacted families can find resources to apply for relief funding on AVCP’s website, as well as updated information surrounding food, clothing, and shelter in Bethel and Anchorage.
