Western Alaska residents from the storm-ravaged communities of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok continued to land Thursday night in Anchorage at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, carrying backpacks and plastic bags filled with their belongings as they exited a military transport plane.
Hundreds of miles from home, not knowing if or when they would return, they then boarded school buses bound for emergency shelters or, in some cases, to stay with friends or family.
Nearly every home in Kipnuk and Kwigillingok was made uninhabitable by record-high floodwaters brought by the remnants of Typhoon Halong, which slammed into the Kuskokwim Delta early Sunday. One woman died in Kwigillingok and two others from her family remain missing…