Typhoon Merbok Impacts on Berry Plants

I've been meaning to write about berries not being able to grow after our tundra surrounding the village was flooded by typhoon Merbok with sea water. It included crowberries, lingonberries, and cloudberries. They were all unable to grow until summer of 2024, and we were finally able to gather them in our dunes that fall. Also unable to grow were greens we call almaruat. I don't recall the English name for them, I'm thinking buttercups, but once I find out, I can email back with the name.

AI Comment from GPT 5:

This post describes how storm surge from Typhoon Merbok left the tundra around Hooper Bay salty and waterlogged, preventing crowberries, lingonberries, cloudberries, and local greens from growing until they returned in summer 2024. It notes a multi‑year gap in harvests before berries were finally gathered again in the dunes last fall.

The related posts show how this ecological disruption intertwined with community impacts. Reporting from Hooper Bay ties the poor berry years directly to saltwater flooding from Merbok’s surge and a cold, rainy summer, noting scarce kavlakuaraq (crowberries) and lowbush cranberries, fewer small mammals and predators, and damaged boats that limited hunting and fishing opportunities—a compounding effect on subsistence foods (A year after Typhoon Merbok, some coastal Alaskans struggle to find subsistence foods). Broader coverage of the storm details how the surge damaged protective berms and freshwater sources and was intensified by the lack of sea ice buffer, helping explain why coastal tundra and plant communities were so affected (Typhoon Merbok pounded Alaska’s vulnerable coastal communities at a critical time). The housing instability faced by displaced Hooper Bay families underscores how long recovery has taken, paralleling the delayed return of berries on the landscape (Hooper Bay families displaced by Merbok could lose housing this month). Together, these posts illuminate how saltwater inundation and storm damage disrupted both berry growth and the broader subsistence and social systems, with signs of ecological recovery emerging by summer 2024.