Typhoon Halong Devastates Western Alaska

When the Storm Hit the Tundra

In mid-October 2025, Typhoon Halong’s 70–90 mph winds slammed into the flat, treeless Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta, pushing Bering Sea water far upriver and across the tundra. Fifty villages reported damage. The coastal communities of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok were nearly entirely evacuated by the U.S. Coast Guard and Alaska National Guard, and flown to Bethel—the only city in the region with a runway long enough to accommodate C-17 military transports.

Kipnuk after

Sadly, the typhoon occurred just one year after Kipnuk received a federal disaster declaration for catastrophic flooding in 2024.

Alaska’s military coordinated the largest airlift in state history, evacuating over 1,500 people. Homes floated off their foundations—some in Kipnuk were carried more than five miles upriver, many still occupied. Roofs were torn away. Boats, snow machines, and ATVs were scattered across the tundra. A barge crashed into Bethel’s only bridge, complicating the rescue of 250 residents who hadn’t evacuated in time. Coffins rose from saturated graves—some never recovered. Infrastructure crumbled: utility poles snapped, boardwalks splintered, and roads collapsed.

Even Bethel, 40 miles inland and home to 6,400 residents, saw significant flooding. Thirty people were displaced, but the most devastating impact was the loss of electricity. Without power, water pumps, sewer systems, and heating systems failed. Roughly 95% of homes lost heat, as most rely on electricity to ignite stove oil, run fuel pumps, and circulate warm air. Fortunately, temperatures hovered around 20°F. Had this occurred in mid-winter, the death toll could have been catastrophic, and infrastructure damage would have soared into the hundreds of millions.

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A Voice in the Storm

Samuel Collyn Symmes, a USAF MARS member and Bethel resident, was the only one of its radio operator within 500 miles. Though never officially activated, he provided critical situation reports (SITREPs) to his commander and fellow operators throughout the emergency.

Samuel Symmes

“Bethel became the central hub for evacuees,” Symmes explained. “Many were sheltered in the National Guard Armory alongside FEMA personnel. About 130 FEMA workers arrived within three days, and over 110 remained a month later.”

Fuel shortages in the villages became a top concern. A local fuel station was destroyed by debris, and emergency supplies had to be flown in—50-gallon drums at a time. The hospital had just two days of backup fuel; the juvenile adult and detention center had seven days for its emergency boilers, which provide heat and hot water.  These needs are normally fulfilled using a waste heat system, just like your car radiator but the radiator is heating the building.  However, in this case all generators fell silent as there were too many faults in the line causing damage to the one and only power source Bethel has.  

The destruction reminded elders of a 1960s tragedy, when Bethel’s power plant burned down during a severe winter storm. Hospital patients reportedly froze to death. Since then, critical infrastructure has been built on slightly higher ground to reduce flood risk.

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When the Phones Went Silent

Phone service failed as towers were damaged and backup batteries lasted only two hours. Generators failed, sparking public outcry—residents could have made cell-to-cell calls locally if power had been maintained. With fiber optic cables down and no cell service, residents turned to what has long connected the region: marine radio.

AM/FM stations failed. NOAA emergency alerts on VHF didn’t transmit. Cell phone alerts were useless. But radio operators stepped up.

Symmes’ communications held strong thanks to careful planning. “My house isn’t on a cement pad,” he said. “Most homes here shift 2–5 degrees a year due to glacial silt and freeze-thaw cycles. Mine is elevated 3.5 feet on pilings driven into bedrock, on high ground which stops the shifting.”

His antenna was mounted on the arctic entry roof—2.5 feet below the main roofline and shielded from prevailing winds. He also maintains a GMRS repeater, with phone patch and a Starlink patch antenna aimed northward across 30–40 miles of open tundra, ensuring minimal interference.  The phone patch was very popular, even having local law enforcement and FEMA stop by to transmit messages on a guest router.  All others were welcomed to use the guest rounter to send messages and VOIP calls to family to let them know they were alive.  

Local hams, though few in number, joined the effort to relay shelter locations. “We gathered info from every source and relayed it over HAM radio to different parts of town to be transmitted by VHF marine radio so people could ask questions, network, and get updates,” Symmes said. “Only two residents in the disaster us used it, but there was traffic on the Alaska Emergency Frequency—5.1675 MHz USB—available to all Alaskans.”

Western Alaska residents being airlifted to Anchorage on a Alaska National Guard C17 October 2025

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Lessons from the Edge

Western Alaska has never had reliable cell service. Communities here have long relied on radio and that resilience paid off during Typhoon Halong.  It’s not uncommon to walk into a house and see a Marine Radio hanging under the kitchen cupboards.

“Urban areas might not have the skills or equipment to communicate when the grid goes down,” Symmes noted. “Out here, we’ve had to be self-reliant for decades.”

He encourages others to prepare: “Build your plan. Add to your supplies over time. I can’t stress propane enough—it doesn’t go bad or need stabilizers. I keep enough for 30 days and 500Ah of battery storage. We were without power for 90 hours, but we stayed warm, cooked, ran water, and got updates from Nome’s AM station. VHF, UHF, and HF radio stayed strong and got the message out.”

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When the grid goes dark, it’s not the loudest voice that leads—it’s the one still transmitting.

Mrs. Alaska’s life in a fly-in only location in the bush of Alaska is depicted in a book available on Amazon:

Log Cabin Reflections.  Lots of photos and self-effacing anecdotes organized by season. 

Dead of Winter: Plants' version of Sleep

The term, “Dead of Winter” sounds negative, doesn’t it?  Maybe even dire?

How about the synonym, Fall, for Autumn?

We are not going anywhere!

Actually, the cold season is as necessary and beneficial to plants as nightly sleep is to humans.  It is a period of rest and rejuvenation. Metabolic shifts in both plants and animals during this rest phase reduce the needs for energy and food, protect cell structure and health in several ways, and prepare us both for the next day or season.

I have studied permaculture, the chemical properties of medicinal plants, and basic botany.  But until I started writing this article about animal sleep and plant dormancy, I did not realize how much animals and plants have in common.  

HORMONAL IMPACTS

Did you know that plants have hormones?  Yes.  Just as human growth and sleep periods are managed by hormones, plant growth and dormancy are similarly regulated.

For humans, melatonin is triggered by darkness and we tend to sleep better in a temperature cooler than the day.  Because it is an anti-oxidant, melatonin helps with cellular repair, reduces inflammation, and facilitates DNA maintenance.   It stimulates our immune system, especially by boosting white blood cell count.  No wonder a good night’s sleep is important to health!

Harvesting sap for the nutrients.

Similarly, in plants, when the hours of daylight decrease, temperatures drop and the plants receive less water, abscisic acid triggers several seasonal changes that protect the plants.  Its most obvious effect is that deciduous trees and plants shed their leaves in autumn.  This relieves the energy engaged during the summer to photosynthesize for growth because there is less light available.  

A less obvious effect is that perennial plants shut their stomata to slow transpiration in response to abscisic acid. This means that less water moves through the plant, and the cells shrink.  Otherwise, fully saturated cells would freeze, expand, and burst.  It also prevents seeds from germinating until temperature and light increase. Abscisic acid allows plants to rest after a vigorous growing season.    

When deciduous trees, plants, and larches (the only conifer that sheds its needles) drop their leaves (and needles), they blanket the ground around their trunks with plant material.  This forms a welcome, shallow, insulating layer that has the additional benefit of degrading under the winter snow to enrich the soil.   This is why raking up leaves in fall is a make-work project that does not need to be done.  In fact, many organic gardeners ask friends for the leaves they choose to rake up so the gardeners can mulch their perennials and gardens.

Just as sleep helps us fight inflammation and cellular damage, winter cold causes weeds and pests to die or go dormant for a season, reducing those stresses on plants.

Obviously, nutritional needs decline during mammalian sleep as well as plant dormancy.  This is because our metabolisms slow down: we do not need to expend as much energy, so we require less fuel.  Hibernating bears, for example, can shed 1/3 of their weight during hibernation as they live off their fat stores.  Similarly, plants need no water or fertilizer during the winter.

 

SNOW 

Readers who live in consistently warm weather may not think of snow as an insulator, but it certainly is.  The crystalline form of snow forms air pockets. Envision a snow bank as structured like insulating panels of polystyrene foam.  At a temperature of 32∞F, this bank protects the roots and lower trunk of perennial plants and trees from temperatures that plummet far below that threshold.  Where I live, in Alaska, at USDA zone 3b, winters always drop to 20-30∞– below 0, and occasionally, lower still.  Those plants certainly benefit from snow’s 50∞ degree protection! It is common for people to shovel snow toward their buildings under the eaves, to protect the plant roots along the building and to form a snow berm “wall” to keep the cold wind from whipping under an elevated home.

Snow everywhere

 Most young trees, like willow, birch, and alder, are so flexible and whippy that they bow down to the ground under the snow weight, thus being totally insulated, like a babe in swaddling clothes.  As these trees age, they get stouter, with thicker bark, and are better able to withstand the brutal cold winters.  

Thus, snow is for plants what a mound of quilts and comforters is to me. I, too, sleep in a cool room, with a cold nose but warmth below.  

Without snow, or above it, vertical frost cracks can form in trees.  They sound like gun shots!  We hear a few every winter.  Southern and western facing tree trunks warm during the day.  At night, the temperature plummets.  The warm (exterior) bark shrinks, but the inner, cool center does not, so the bark on the warm side and the wood right below it crack… loudly!  This seems to be especially evident in older trees rather than young ones. 

 

GERMINATION

Just as many animals, like moose and deer, mate in autumn to bear young in early spring, a number of cold weather plants can actually be planted in the fall, before soil freezes, in order to take advantage of early spring thaw, leafing out through shallow snow.  Another set of plant hormones, called gibberellins, triggers the temperature cue for germination, which varies. Among leafy plants, spinach and lettuce are two that can sprout very early.  Root vegetables like garlic, onion, beets, are well acclimated to autumn planting for early spring leafing.  In my very snowy climate, however, many of these fall- planted seeds can rot in  the snow melt.  So, I often winter-sow these seeds in containers and leave them outside all winter, putting them in a sunny spot in February/March for transplantation when the snow recedes and the gardens dry up a bit. Most plants, though, germinate at higher temperatures.

  

TRICKY WEATHER

Just as people can wake up in the middle of the night due to some sound or dream, and start their day at, say, 3 am, only to crash early the next day, so, too, plants can inopportunely “awaken”.   An unexpected warmth spell (up here, perhaps caused by a strong Chinook weather system that can raise the temperature by a huge margin) can trigger spring behaviors.  Leaves sprout, flowers form, only to be killed by the next dash of low temperatures.  The vicissitudes of weather are particularly detrimental to domesticated plants.  Local wild ones have had more generations to adapt.  

Recognizing these similarities between humans and plants gives me greater sense of affinity with them.  Although our deep snows and cold temperatures can challenge me, I now view them as beneficial to the boreal forest that surrounds me.  Maybe in addition to familial terms like Mother Nature, I will start thinking of additional relationships, like Brother Tree and Sister Flower. 

 

Author:  Laura Emerson lives off-grid with her husband in the Alaska bush – population 4 – a 20 minute flight from the nearest road.  Curious about such a life?  See Log Cabin Reflections on Amazon for $5. Lots of pictures and anecdotes, arranged by season.