Brooklyn David, Paula Jung, Kiley Amik, and Gretchen Tressler are middle and high school students who participated in a media workshop sponsored by the Lower Kuskokwim School District Migrant Education program and Alaska Sea Grant/University of Alaska Fairbanks.
As part of our media project, we interviewed Fred Phillip and Lucy Martin about their experiences during Typhoon Halong. We wanted to learn what happened during the storm and how it affected their community. Even though they lived through the same storm, they each had different experiences and memories to share. Their stories taught us about resilience, helping others, and staying strong during difficult times. We hope these interviews help others learn more about Typhoon Halong and the people who lived through it.
Lucy Martin
Lucy Martin shared what it was like to be at home with her family during Typhoon Halong. She told us about giant waves hitting her house, and her home floating in the floodwaters. Even though it was a scary experience, Lucy stayed strong. She now helps her community, along with other communities, prepare for the future by using drones and mapping technology. Her story showed us that even after something terrible happens, people can keep going and help others.
The discussion has been edited for clarity and condensed by Katie Baldwin Basile and Deja Jackson.
Here’s our conversation.
Paula Jung: Okay, so I'm Paula. I'm from Bethel and I'm in ninth grade.
Kiley Amik: I am Kiley, I’m from Kwig, and I'm going to be in 11th grade.
Lucy Martin: Nice to meet you guys. My name is Lucy Martin. I am from Kwigillingok and Kipnuk. I grew up in both villages, and then after high school I chose to stay in Kwig. I became a health practitioner, I did that for 18 years, and then I moved on to Coastal Villages Region Fund. That's where I got my GIS training. GIS is Geographic Information Systems, and that program is where we learn how to make maps. Eventually, I started working for the Native Village of Kwigillingok, continuing my GIS map. Last year, towards the middle of May, I started ground school to become an unmanned aircraft pilot, so now I fly drones and I do mapping.
Kiley Amik: When did you start to notice environmental change in your community?
Lucy Martin: I'd say, like, 10 years ago when it started flooding. There's more flooding than before, and the tundra is sinking. In the last four years everything got worse, because during super high tides water would be under my house. The last four years have been the worst.
Paula Jung: What is something you want others to understand about your community?
Lucy Martin: Before Typhoon Halong, I'd say Kwig was one of the safest places to live in, where kids could play out freely all day with no worries. Kwig people live a subsistence way of life. We all fish and hunt to survive the winter, and people were doing really good. After the typhoon, I can say Kwig is no longer safe for a year of living due to increased storm events.
Paula Jung: What do you miss about Kwigillingok?
Lucy Martin: I miss home. I miss the tundra, everyday in the ocean. I miss going out to the ocean on really good days, like today. I miss going out and being out.
Kiley Amik: When did you start flying drones and building maps?
Lucy Martin: I started flying drones about a year ago. July is when I got my license. My first drone missions were in August, that's where I did my skill flight training in Nome. After that I started flying as missions came up.
Paula Jung: Do you go back to Kwig to fly the drones and map the village, and how do you map the village?
Lucy Martin: I went to Kwig the week before Memorial Day. I went the first time [since ex-typhoon Halong] to fly, and then the first week of this month I went for the second time. I had two drone missions, one was to do a 3D scan of our fuel tank, and the second mission was to do a community scan. An aerial photo of Kwig with the camera facing down, so I took, like, over 7,000 photos using the drone.
Paula Jung: How do you map the village?
Lucy Martin: I used Geographic or ArcGIS Pro with an app, and I will be able to show you that.
Kiley Amik: How does mapping help to build resilience for your village?
Lucy Martin: The mapping that I do, it helps our community leaders, like the tribal administrator and tribal council. They look at the maps, that's how they decide what projects could be done in the future. Right now, relocation is a big thing. I've made several maps to help our community choose where to relocate to.
Before the typhoon, about three years ago, when everything was normal for Kwig, due to erosion and sinking land, we had small projects to move some houses away from the river. Away from the marsh, but funding was halted, so that was not completed. I think they only moved two houses, the rest were put on pause. That mapping that I did was useful after the typhoon so that we can have an instant inventory of houses that floated away or stayed in place, including the boardwalks. I will be able to show you that as well.
Paula Jung: Okay, would you feel comfortable sharing your story about the day of the typhoon? It's okay if you don't want to talk about it.
Lucy Martin: I can talk about it. I was in Anchorage that first week of October for training with three other people from Kwig. Oct. 11, that's the day that I went home to Kwig. When I got home, my boys were putting away things that would float away. My dad was helping, and our tribal administrator, plus two more other people, were going house to house. Telling people to go to the school for shelter, warning everybody that this storm is going to be bigger than [Typhoon] Merbok. Merbok is a previous storm that hit Chevak, Hooper [Bay], and north villages the hardest.
My dad didn't want to go, so we stayed home. At about 2:15 in the morning I heard my dad say something really loud, so I got up — I got up — I went to the bathroom to look out the window. I saw graves rolling, they were floating really fast. Not long after that the power went out, it was pitch black, and then something hit our house, and then something hit our house again — that's when we fell off. We fell off and started floating. The waves were bigger than our houses because it was a real tsunami event. The wave hit our house, and I could hear bubbles up on the roof, and when the water went down it went, 'shhhh.' We kept floating. My house would rock really hard. There was about 1 foot of water inside the house, and every time we would rock the water would go back and forth inside the house — we didn't land — we didn't.
We stopped floating around like 4:34, 4:40, somewhere around there. We didn't know where we were because it was really dark outside, but about 5 a.m., that's when somebody from the Coast Guard contacted me through text. We were texting each other all morning because we didn't know where we were. Our locations on our phones were really, really off… they were not accurate. I didn't think to turn on one of the GPSs because we were still in shock, so when daylight came, the Coast Guard contacted me again. That's when the wind died down enough for the Coast Guard to fly to our area. The Coast Guard pilot let me know that he's going to fly back and forth north of us, and that we should be outside, waving to the Coast Guard pilot.
Somebody from the tribal council, our tribal administrator, found his way to our house. He told us to get ready, that they would help us go to the houses that floated nearby because there were Elders there. That was our get-together spot. We were all assisted to walk to the house, and everybody gathered there. The Coast Guard came, picked up the Elders first, and brought them to the Kwig Airport. The next load was moms and kids. There were some men that decided to stay so that they could haul bags that the Coast Guard couldn't take, like bags of medicine and important stuff, wallets, and birth certificates. Things people really needed.
We sheltered at the school. While we were sheltering, the information from my GIS and tribal enrollment list were helpful for head counts. To make sure that nobody was unaccounted for so that we would know who's in Kwig, who's not in Kwig, who is lost, who is all at the school or staying at their own houses. It was a really good, organized list.
Kiley Amik: What does resilience mean to you?
Lucy Martin: How can I say it in English? Pisciigatevkenata puigngaluta, like that, we are able to survive. Able to survive, able to recover. For example, most of Kwig was evacuated either to Bethel, Anchorage, Fairbanks, or Wasilla, or other villages like Napaskiak or Tunt[tutuliak]. Resiliency can mean being able to adapt and recover from a storm event like the typhoon.
Paula Jung: What do you hope for future generations?
Lucy Martin: I hope that our future generations will not have to go through what we are going through right now, because that was a very traumatic event. Our community needs to move to higher ground so that our next generation won't have to go through this again.
Kiley Amik: Is there anything else you would like to share?
Lucy Martin: I would like to encourage you guys to do your best in school, succeed, and don't refuse any training opportunities that show up in your life because trainings will open doors for you to do great things!