Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta residents brace for fall storms after early floods and erosion

A series of very strong storms caught many people in Western Alaska off guard last week, including in Napakiak, where the banks of the Kuskokwim River are eroding at a startling rate.

The community was inundated with floodwaters from the Kuskokwim for two days. Signs of the flooding are evident everywhere: snow machines and four-wheelers were still parked on high ground days later. And a crew had to repair the plumbing under the city office after high water damaged pipes.

“Everything was displaced,” said Walter Nelson, as he pointed to where floodwaters from the Kuskokwim, which is also influenced by tides on the Bering Sea coast, rose to about his midsection. He said he’s used to these kinds of events.

“Even if we don’t have a plan for it, there’s ways around it, and that we can tackle it and that’s what we’ve been doing and hope to continue doing,” he said.

In 2020, Nelson, who works for the city, helped devise Napakiak’s 50-year plan. It outlines how the community will retreat from severe erosion along the Kuskokwim River’s edge, which is about a quarter mile from the city office.

Nelson pointed to chunks of broken riverbank, where the sand, mud and gravel disappeared into the silty, grayish-brown water during this most recent series of storms. “It just cracks underneath at high tide, waves just bang this way,” he explained.

This is all happening about 10 feet from the back end of Napakiak’s public school.

“Every year we hold community gatherings for the whole community, meeting place, basketball games, what not, potlucks, potlatches, a lot of good memories are going to be gone …” Nelson said.

Roughly half the school building was demolished last year. A crew is racing to take down the rest of the building this fall before it collapses into the river.

According to climatologist Rick Thoman, these kinds of storms aren’t unprecedented, but they don’t usually arrive on the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta until later in the fall.

“It was a deep low pressure center by late August standards but not at record level,” Thoman wrote in an email.

He said that Bristol Bay saw severe coastal flooding in August in 2005. Back in 1990, Nome also experienced severe weather and saw significant coastal erosion.

On average, Napakiak sees up to 30 feet of riverbank disappear every year. Major storm systems can accelerate that pace, and Nelson, who is 64 and grew up in Napakiak, said he just hasn’t seen this kind of weather in August.

“September is actually where most of the southern and western storms come in. Everything is gonna accelerate, I just know it is,” he said. “But we cannot fight Mother Nature, just be prepared for her.”

Nelsons said the impacts from the remnants of Typhoon Merbok back in September 2022 are still the worst he’s ever seen, but the damage from this most recent storm system is a close comparison – perhaps a little too close for comfort.