Eagle AK: This Year Was SURREAL

After evacuating, yukonbushgrandma returned to this

May 10, 2009

Tonight on the national news in the lower 48 the lead story has been the flash flooding in West Virgina. There’s this from the Charleston Daily Mail:

LOGAN, W.Va. (AP) – Heavy rains caused flash-flooding Saturday in southern West Virginia, closing many highways, forcing residents from their homes and prompting Gov. Joe Manchin to declare a state of emergency.

We get very little news coverage of non-political events and situations from Alaska and when we do, it’s hard to put it in a frame of reference. Here’s a map – we’ll add villages as news from them emerges.

Yukonbushgrandma illustrated it for all of as at Mudflats today. She and her husband live in Eagle Village, the area where the first reports of damage from the early melt out emerged.

We were the lead story one night on KTUU.  Those brave ladies (reporter & videographer) wanted to see, and record, what our house looked like after the onslaught.  I hadn’t seen it yet myself.  They walked down the steep bank of moss, roots and stumps, and eventually we got down to the house.  It was totally enveloped in massive ice chunks, preventing entry to the house anywhere.  The only way to enter was to break a window and enter by ladder, being very careful not to get cut by broken window shards.

We have entered that window many times since then, trying to retrieve anything that might be salvageable.  Every time we go there, I cry.  We can get things, but they are so messed up, covered with diesel and silt, that we wonder if it’s truly worth rescuing them.

This is far from the mouth of the Yukon where Emmonak and Nunam Iqua are located. There are many villages between them that the melting ice, high waters and diesel pollution must pass through before entering the Bering Sea.

Our thoughts are with you yukonbushgrandma! Please keep us posted about relief operations in Eagle and with other information you hear as this icy disaster makes its way to the ocean.

Click  here for an updated photo that shows flood warnings and advisories along the Yukon.

Backstory…
‘Tsunami’ Of Ice Wreaks Havoc On Alaskan Town