"Silver-lined clouds hung over the Yup'ik village of Kwigillingok the Thursday before a weekend storm was forecasted to pass through. Dan Winkelman was at the community health clinic for a ground-breaking ceremony, a commemoration of the facility's much needed expansion. The renovation part of a $100m effort by the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation (YKHC) was an example of the non-profit matching its money to its mission: to represent the healthiest people in south-western Alaska."
"That storm, Typhoon Halong, pummeled as many as 15 villages across the Yukon-Kuskokwim (YK) delta, an expanse the size of Oregon and where the Yukon and Kuskokwim rivers meet the Bering Sea. As Saturday turned to Sunday, 11 October, hurricane-force winds unleashed towering waves that sent rivers and sloughs spilling over their banks. Kwigillingok saw record tides above 6 ft. Kusilvak registered category 2 winds at 107mph (172.2km/h). Homes were swept away, power lines were downed, and fuel tanks spilled into winding wetlands."
Dan Winkelman attended a groundbreaking for an expanded community health clinic funded by a $100m Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation effort serving some 30,000 Indigenous Alaskans across 58 federally recognized tribes. Typhoon Halong struck the Yukon-Kuskokwim delta with hurricane-force winds and towering waves that caused record tides, category 2 gusts, washed-away homes, downed power lines, contaminated fuel spills, and multiple deaths and missing people. The YK delta faces amplified threats from thawing permafrost, chronic erosion, stronger and more frequent storms, increased flooding, and usteq catastrophic land collapse that undermine village foundations, infrastructure, and public health across the region.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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