Kivalina has long dealt with climate change-driven erosion. While the village didn’t feel the effects of heavy flooding, residents are wary of a future with heavy autumn storms.

During a community meeting, Chevak residents said better emergency planning should be a long-term priority. For now, though, assessing damage is the focus.

Nome's landscape is physically altered, with raw material scattered wildly, the coastline reconfigured, and camps that anchored generations of subsistence either flattened or gone.

The powerful remnants of Typhoon Merbok pounded Alaska’s western coast on Sept. 17, 2022, pushing homes off their foundations and tearing apart protective berms as water flooded communities. Storms aren’t unusual here, but Merbok built up over unusually warm water. Its waves reached 50 feet over the Bering Sea, and its storm surge sent water levels into communities at near record highs along with near hurricane-force winds.