ANCHORAGE: A storm forecast to be one of the worst on record in Alaska lashed the state's western coastline on Wednesday, tearing roofs off buildings and sending surges of water and debris into communities, authorities said.
The storm, which began hitting Alaska late on Tuesday after building over the North Pacific Ocean, brought winds measured at up to 89 miles per hour and early flooding to the remote communities and Native villages along the coastline.
There have been no reports of injuries, and damage has been caused largely by wind and includes reports of the downed power lines and tin roofs blown off homes, said Andy Brown, lead forecaster for the National Weather Service in Anchorage, the state's largest city.
Water surges of seven to nine feet are expected to peak in the afternoon, Brown said.
Most of western Alaska is at high risk, from the Yupik Eskimo community of Bethel in the Yukon-Kuskowim delta to the Inupiat Eskimo village of Wainwright on the North Slope, according to the National Weather Service.
But one of the hardest-hit areas so far has been Nome, a former Gold Rush boomtown famous as the end of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, and surrounding villages.
There, the storm tossed debris onto roads, making driving dangerous, city officials reported. Waves have launched “fist-sized rocks” and logs up to two feet in diameter onto the roadway, officials said.
“These objects would cause injury to any person that was struck,” the city's emergency managers said in a written statement.
Evacuations have been ordered in low-lying parts of Nome and other sites, with residents housed in schools and other public buildings.
But large-scale evacuations out of the region are not considered feasible because weather conditions make flying hazardous, a state official said Tuesday.
Nome, with 3,600 residents, is one of the largest cities in western Alaska.
The communities spread along the coastline are mostly traditional Native settlements, with a few hundred to a few thousand inhabitants, and no roads linking to communities.
The US Coast Guard has also stationed helicopters and cutters in the region, potentially to aid mariners involved in the crab fishery.
The Alaska National Guard said on Wednesday it has activated an operations center at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
Powerful storms of this magnitude are common at this time of year in the Bering Sea and North Pacific, but this storm is unusual because of its northward trajectory and the lack of sea ice in near-shore areas like Norton Sound off Nome, National Weather Service and other agency officials said.
“Forty years ago, a big storm like this would come through and the sea ice would act as sort of a buffer,” said Mark Serreze, director of the Snow and Ice Data Center.
“The Bering Sea has and always will have these strong storms. What is different now is their potential destructiveness as you lose the sea ice cover,” he added.
Dear visitor, the comments section is undergoing an overhaul and will return soon.