AP- The remnant storms of Typhoon Halong tore into western Alaska with such ferocity that they pulled Steven Anaver’s home from its foundation and buoyed it across choppy water — with him inside.
Videos he shared Monday with The Associated Press convey the desperate scene as the waters rose inside his home and the flooding raged outside.
The storms’ blistering winds and record-high water levels laid waste to several small communities Oct. 12, displacing more than 2,000 people and requiring one of the most significant airlift operations in Alaska history.
At least one person is dead, and two others are missing.
The water started rising quickly Saturday night in Anaver’s village of Kwigillingok. It’s one of two Yup’ik communities that were hit hardest.
Anaver looked out through his window into pitch-black darkness. The power had long since been out.
The storm was the worst he’d seen. At around 3:00 a.m. on Sunday, the water level jumped, rising to his knees in about 10 minutes.
Shortly after, the home teetered, tilted and started floating.
Plastic bags, boxes of blankets, a leather boot and furniture cushions floated in videos Anaver took from inside. The walls swayed like a ship’s.
Outside, the dark waters lapped the house just a few feet from the window as the home drifted away. Anaver heard loud booms, and frigid wind rushed through a hole that opened in one wall.
“This was a big challenge for my anxiety,” he said. “I kept calling my family.”
More booms shook the home as the waves crashed it into other structures.
“Oh God,” he wrote in a Facebook post around 5:30 a.m.
Anaver tried to take pictures to orient where he was — the camera could see better than his eyes in the darkness — but it was futile until the moon came out later that morning.
He could see a house he recognized. He’d floated for roughly a mile.
A small hill with a board sticking out of it had stopped Anaver’s home just feet from the river, which had dragged other houses much farther away.
After 7 a.m., when the water had receded enough, two neighbors in waders came over and helped him out.
Three days later, Anaver posted a video on Facebook of the hours drifting in his own home.
“I was inches away from death,” he wrote. “I escaped.”
Members of the Tlingit, Haida and Tsimshian group Aanchich’x Kwaan perform on Oct. 18, 2025, at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage. The dance and singing group has members of all age groups, from young children to elders. The group was among several that performed traditional dances at the convention. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The Alaska Federation of Natives convention in Anchorage, while it featured the usual cultural celebrations, socializing and discussions of state and federal policies, had a strong focus this year on a particular subject: the ravages on the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta of ex-Typhoon Halong.
Natasha Singh poses for photos in the hallway of the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center, site of the Alaska Federation of Natives annual convention. Singh, who is president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, had just delivered her keynote speech on the opening morning of the convention. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Speaker after speaker at the convention, the largest annual convention of any kind in Alaska and one of the largest Indigenous gatherings in the nation, referenced the storm. It has displaced more than 1,500 people, killed at least one person and dislodged houses from their foundations. Residents of stricken villages have been airlifted away, with hundreds getting temporary residency in Anchorage. The state’s largest city is about 490 miles east of the evacuees’ home villages, and vastly different in culture and character from the highly rural Indigenous communities.
“My heart with everyone impacted by the recent coastal storms,” Natasha Singh, the president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the keynote speaker on the first day of the convention, said at the start of her address.
“While the damage is so vast, the love for our people is even greater. And even as we feel the pain and the loss, I also feel a sense of inspiration to see so many people reach out to help,” she continued.
Volunteers work on Oct. 18, 2025, to sort donated items being collected in a room in the Dena’ina Civic and Coonvention Center, site of the Alaska Federation of Natives annual convention. Donations of diapers, clothing, hygiene products, bottled water, shelf-stable food and other items were being collected for Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta residents displaced by the remnants of Typhoon Halong. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
A special feature of the convention was a second-floor room at the Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center that was set aside to collect donations headed to the storm victims. Over two days, as convention proceedings unfolded in the third-floor ballroom, the collection room became filled with boxes of diapers, toiletries, clothing items, shelf-stable food and other necessities that were sorted by volunteers.
On Saturday, the final day, delegates passed a resolution seeking an immediate national disaster declaration, and investment by the federal government in better infrastructure in rural Alaska to protect against future disasters.
The ravages of the remnants ofTyphoon Halong demand more than an emergency response, the resolution said. The disaster “has continued to expose vulnerabilities in infrastructure, housing, and emergency preparedness for rural Alaska/extreme remote America, and highlights the need for stronger tribal-state-federal collaboration,” it said.
Alaska Federation of Natives convention attendees from the Yukon-Kuskokwim region listen on Oct. 16, 2025, to the keynote address delivered by Natasha Singh, president of the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The call for a national disaster declaration and the aid that would come with it was among a packet of resolutions passed on Saturday. Many of the resolutions concerned food security and efforts to ensure that Alaska Natives can safely practice their traditional fishing and hunting practices.
One highly anticipated convention speaker was former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, who is considered a possible candidate for governor or U.S. Senate.
But Peltola made no campaign announcement.
“I want to preface everything I’m saying with: This is going to be very anticlimactic for everybody, I think,” she said at the start of her speech. “No big announcements, no big declarations.”
Former U.S. Rep. Mary Peltola, D-Alaska, speaks at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Oct. 17, 2025, about subsistence food gathering. Peltola is Yup’ik and from Bethel. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Instead, she discussed subsistence – the traditional harvests of wild foods and arts materials – and the legal and environmental threats to its continued practice.
State legislators sit onstage at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Oct. 17, 2025, as House Speaker Bryce Edgmon, I-Dillingham, addresses the audience. Lawmakers pictured are, from the left, Rep. Neal Foster, D-Nome; Rep. Maxine Dibert, D-Fairbanks; Rep. Andrew Gray, D-Anchorage; Rep. Zack Fields, D-Anchorage; Rep. Robyn Burke, D-Utqiagvik; Rep. Louise Stutes, R-Kodiak; Sen. Donny Olson, D-Golovin; and Rep. Nellie Jimmie, D-Toksook Bay. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
She spoke about the way subsistence ties Alaska Natives to their home regions.
“Those spots, the places that we hunt and fish, they’re like another personality to us,” Peltola said.
She referred to a close friend who recently died. When she was on her deathbed, her family gathered around, Peltola said. “And at one point, they just talked about places. They just said the names of the places where they pick berries, or get whitefish, gather greens. And it was one of the most beautiful moments I’ve ever experienced, just reciting names.”
Kendra Berlin mans a pro-voting table at the Alaska Federation of Natives convention on Oct. 16, 2025. Berlin, originally from Bethel but now living in Palmer, was distributing T-shirt and buttons promoting the Natives Vote cause. (Phot by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
In this photo provided by the Alaska Army National, Guard Sgt. Mary Miller, a helicopter crew chief, passes a bottle of water to a child while evacuating displaced people from Kwigillingok, Alaska, during recovery operations on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025. (Joseph Moon/Alaska National Guard via AP)
AP-Damage to remote Alaska villages hammered by flooding last weekend is so extreme that many of the more than 2,000 people displaced won’t be able to return to their homes for at least 18 months, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a request to the White House for a major disaster declaration.
In one of the hardest hit villages, Kipnuk, an initial assessment showed that 121 homes — or 90% of the total — have been destroyed, Dunleavy wrote. In Kwigillingok, where three dozen homes floated away, slightly more than one-third of the residences are uninhabitable.
The remnants of Typhoon Halong struck the area with the ferocity of a Category 2 hurricane, Dunleavy said, sending a surge of high surf into the low-lying region. One person was killed, two remain missing, and rescue crews plucked dozens of people from their homes as they floated away.
Officials have been scrambling to airlift people from the inundated Alaska Native villages. More than 2,000 people across the region have taken shelter — in schools in their villages, in larger communities in southwest Alaska or have been evacuated by military planes to Anchorage, the state’s largest city.
Anchorage leaders said Friday they expect as many as 1,600 evacuees to arrive. So far about 575 have been airlifted to the city by the Alaska National Guard, and have been staying at a sports arena or a convention center. Additional flights were expected Friday and Saturday.
Officials are working on figuring out how to move people out of shelters and into short-term accommodations, such as hotels, and then longer-term housing.
“Due to the time, space, distance, geography, and weather in the affected areas, it is likely that many survivors will be unable to return to their communities this winter,” Dunleavy said. “Agencies are prioritizing rapid repairs … but it is likely that some damaged communities will not be viable to support winter occupancy, in America’s harshest climate in the U.S. Arctic.”
The federal government already has been assisting with search and rescue, damage assessments, environmental response and evacuation support. A major disaster declaration by President Donald Trump could provide federal assistance programs for individuals and public infrastructure, including money for emergency and permanent work.
The three members of Alaska’s congressional delegation on Friday sent a letter to Trump, urging swift approval.
The storm surge pummeled a sparsely populated region off the state’s main road system where communities are reachable only by air or water this time of year. The villages typically have just a few hundred residents, who hunt and fish for much of their food, and relocating to the state’s major cities will bring a vastly different lifestyle.
Alexie Stone, of Kipnuk, arrived in Anchorage in a military jet with his brothers, children and mom, after his home was struck by the flooding. They’ve been staying at the Alaska Airlines Center at the University of Alaska, where the Red Cross provided evacuees with cots, blankets and hygiene supplies.
At least for the foreseeable future, he thinks he might try to find a job at a grocery store; he used to work in one in Bethel.
“It’s going to be, try to look for a place and find a job,” Stone said Friday. “We’re starting a new life here in Anchorage.”
Anchorage officials and business leaders said Friday they were eager to help the evacuees.
“Our neighbors in western Alaska have experienced tremendous loss, devastation and grief,” Mayor Suzanne LaFrance said at a meeting of the Anchorage Assembly. “We will do everything we can here in Anchorage to welcome our neighbors and help them through these difficult times.”
State Rep. Nellie Unangiq Jimmie, of Toksook Bay, on an island northwest of Kipnuk, described for the assembly how she rode out the storm’s 100 mph (161 kmh) winds with her daughter and niece.
“We had no choice but to sit in our home and wait to see if our house is going to come off the foundation or if debris is going to bust open our windows,” she said.
It didn’t, but others weren’t as fortunate. She thanked Anchorage for welcoming the evacuees.
“You are showing my people, my relatives, my constituents, even if they are far from home, this is still Alaska land and they’re amongst families,” Jimmie said.
Hundreds gather at Overstreet park in Juneau (James Brooks, Alaska Beacon)
Alaskans came out to protest the Trump administration as part of the nationwide No Kings protest on Saturday, with speeches, songs, and increasingly creative flair — signs, slogans, and costumes, some as inflatable animals like eagles and polar bears.
In downtown Anchorage, protesters filled Town Square Park, and the crowd spilled over to line W 5th and W 6th avenues, where they waved signs and passing cars honked in support.
“It’s a matter of we are losing our rights,” said Keri Lord of Anchorage, dressed in a long cape and crown for the no kings theme. “And we are headed towards fascism, and it needs to stop now.”
Thousands gather at Town Square Park in downtown Anchorage for the second No Kings day protest to denounce the Trump administration and its policies on Oct. 18, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
There were speeches, chants, poetry and songs. The crowd also showed support for the evacuees of the devastating storm in western Alaska, and urged donations and continued aid for relief and recovery efforts. Non-profits and advocacy groups hosted tables along the Atwood Concert Hall with educational materials and hot coffee.
“It’s great to see so many people come out,” said Karan Gier, matching Lord in a cape and crown, holding a sign reading “No troops in our streets.“ And from all ages. That’s what’s especially wonderful. We’ve seen that all summer, because we’ve been to all of (the protests) all summer long. And it makes your heart feel good to see this. We’re not a silent majority. We are loud.”
At least 25 communities held events throughout the state for No Kings day, including Kotzebue, Nome, Fairbanks, Talkeetna, Healy, Wasilla, Anchorage, Girdwood, Soldotna, Kenai, Homer, Seward, Dillingham, Kodiak, Valdez, Haines, Gustavus, Juneau, Sitka, Ketchikan and others.
Around 45 protesters rallied in Healy, pop. 723, in the Denali Borough of Interior Alaska for the second No Kings day protest on Oct. 18, 2025 (Photo by Michelle Femrite)
Alaskan’s protest signs shared on social media and in Anchorage used humor and satire to mock and condemn President Donald Trump, his cabinet, and recent moves to expand executive powers as authoritarian. Speakers denounced cuts to federal funding and social services such as Medicaid, disregard for the rule of law, and the ongoing government shutdown.
Many protest signs denounced the deployment of U.S. military troops in Democratic-led cities across the country, and the actions of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement violently arresting immigrants and U.S. citizens.
“I love this country, and I think we should be better,” said Kathryn Schild, a life-long Anchorage resident. “I’m appalled at what we are doing to our friends and our neighbors and our loved ones.”
“And this is what we can do, right?” she said. “We have a voice, we can call, we can protest, we can stand up, and we can demand that our government work for us.”
AP- The special delivery arrived in a plastic storage box after a chartered flight in bouncy single-propeller plane. Veterinarian Susan Shaffer Sookram snipped the zip ties securing the lid and greeted the cargo: four dogs, one with a gray collar bearing its name, Happy.
“What a scary ride!” she said. “You made it!”
As officials in Alaska work around the clock on one of the most significant airlift operations in state history — evacuating more than 1,000 people from remote, flood-battered villages on the coast of the Bering Sea — another rescue operation is playing out: getting the dogs left behind to safety, in hopes of later reuniting them with their owners.
The pet shelters closest to the devastated villages are in Bethel, a regional hub around 90 miles (150 kilometers) away by boat or plane.
When Bethel Friends of Canines, a nonprofit that helps rehome animals, learned that 50 to 100 dogs might be abandoned in one of the villages, Kipnuk, it scrambled to charter a plane to evacuate them.
“It costs us $3,000 to do this so and we don’t know how many times we’re gonna have to do it,” organizer Jesslyn Elliott said by phone Wednesday. “We’ve never had a natural disaster to this, like, magnitude. So this is all very, very foreign and new to us. So we’re just kind of winging it.”
The first flight arrived in Bethel on Wednesday night, and more happened Thursday. Dozens of dogs have passed through her kennel since the floods began. The nonprofit had raised more than $22,000 after pleading on Facebook for donations.
The flooding, caused by remnants of Typhoon Halong, has damaged homes in 11 small rural communities, with no more than a few hundred residents, according to FEMA. Many homes cannot be repaired until next summer as winter temperatures and snow are forecast for this month.
Pets were not allowed on the military evacuation flights. State officials have said that the evacuation of people is the priority.
Bethel Friends of Canines received dogs throughout the week as people fleeing their homes arrived by boat and by plane. There are no roads connecting towns in the area.
Many of the pets owners want them back soon, but need time to prepare temporary lodgings in cities like Anchorage and Nome, which are more than 250 miles (400 kilometers) away.
Before the devastating floods, Bethel Friends of Canines typically held 15 to 20 dogs at any one time. Now as many as 15 dogs have arrived on a single flight. Elliott expects most of the additional dogs to stay in Bethel temporarily before being reunited with their owners or extended family that can foster them.
At least eight dogs had been reunited with owners in Anchorage as of Thursday morning, she said.
Homes in affected villages are so damaged that they many not be livable in the winter, emergency management officials said Wednesday, and forecasters said rain and snow could arrive this weekend.
With the human population in Kipnuk shrinking each day, the animal caretakers in Bethel realized they had to act fast, before everyone who knew the dogs was gone.
“There’s going to be nobody left there,” said Sookram, the veterinarian, in a phone interview. “We’re having to kind of accelerate how the animals are going to be leaving places only accessible by, at first, helicopter and now small planes,”
Some of the last people to stay behind and serve the community are teachers. Schools in flooded towns have served as emergency shelters and meeting places through the relief effort.
Back in Kipnuk, the dog with the gray collar, Happy, was found waiting on its owner’s clothes, refusing to move or eat, by teacher Jacqui Lang. She said in a text message that the dog has since been reunited with its family.
She’s one of two or three teachers who helped wrangle the pets to be loaded at the airstrip, according to Lower Kuskokwim School District Superintendent Andrew ‘Hannibal’ Anderson.
When Bethel Friends of Canines worker Matthew Morgan landed in Kipnuk on Wednesday, the teachers had fed the dogs, coaxed them into crates and labeled them with tags listing their owners.
“You’ve got some heroes out in Kipnuk. They’re like the last people left there,” Morgan said. Without them, “it would have been chasing dogs all night in the mud.”
NOTN- Juneau Mayor Beth Weldon says the city is preparing to welcome Nathaniel “Nano” Brooks to the Assembly following this month’s municipal election.
Brooks won the District 2 Assembly seat by a narrow margin and will officially take office once election results are certified later this month.
“October 27 is our reorganization meeting.” Weldon said, “But he’s officially part of the assembly when the election is certified. He’ll get his big notebook and start plowing through that and learn the fun things about the assembly that are hard to deal with.”
Weldon said she and other city officials met with Brooks Wednesday morning to begin his orientation and help him prepare for his new role.
She added that the biggest challenge for new members often comes from adapting to the city’s decision-making process.
“The biggest problem that people have coming on to any of our boards or commissions or assembly is all of our decisions are made in the public.” Said Weldon, “That’s different for lots of people, because it’s hard to talk about everything in front of the public when you first come on, and it’s what we do, we involve the public in all our decision making.”
Weldon said she’s looking forward to working with Brooks, who she described as excited about his new position.
Volumes of the Alaska Administrative Code are seen on Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, at the Legislative Reference Library in the Alaska State Capitol at Juneau. (Photo by James Brooks/Alaska Beacon)
In the next few years, Alaskans could see sweeping changes to everyday life under an ambitious and far-reaching program launched by Gov. Mike Dunleavy.
Administrative Order 360, issued in August, calls on state agencies to reduce the number of state regulations by 15% before 2027 and 25% cumulatively before 2028.
Both deadlines would come after Dunleavy, who is term-limited, leaves office in December 2026.
If laws are the bones of a state, regulations are the ligaments and connective tissue that keep it moving. Alaska’s administrative code, a shelflong 10-volume set of thick books, dictates everything from how to conduct an election to the proper labeling of eggs and the correct way to install an underground fuel tank.
Forty-five different professions are regulated by the state: Pharmacists follow the rules in that code, as do nail technicians, concert promoters, barbers, midwives, and people who euthanize animals.
Elections officials operate under a system of regulations, as do local electric companies, water providers, and the people providing Internet service. Utilities, which have local monopolies on critical services, are tightly regulated, with even their profit margins controlled by the state.
Regulations are intended to protect the public and ensure safety, but some businesses see them as a problem, particularly if the cost of following them is high, or if they go beyond what the business owner thinks is warranted.
“There are often numerous, unnecessary requirements that simply impose an unnecessary burden on businesses, the public, and the agencies themselves,” says a regulatory reduction guide distributed by the Dunleavy administration to state agencies as part of the administrative project.
Development permitting regulations are a top priority
The governor’s order specifies that the departments of Natural Resources, Environmental Conservation and Fish and Game focus “on permitting process reform,” eliminating regulations that lay out steps to take before a development project like a new mine, road or neighborhood can be built.
Attorney General-designee Stephen Cox began leading the Alaska Department of Law not long after Dunleavy issued AO 360, and his agency is taking a lead role in its implementation.
“One of the things that the governor is trying to do is make Alaska all the more attractive for investment,” he said.
Sometimes, Cox said, regulations go farther than what was intended by law. Rather than serving as connective tissue, they can act “almost like a spider web” as additional forms and requirements are added over time, with none taken away.
“You might start out with a single strand, but then there becomes this whole web that you can walk right into. You can feel it everywhere. … it’s just sort of expanding and expanding, and it hardly ever shrinks, until the rain comes, and that’s what AO 360 will be akin to,” he said.
Department of Law officials believe the state has a large number of outdated regulations that could be easily removed.
In other cases, regulations have adopted parts of federal law by reference, but agencies haven’t checked to see whether those federal laws have been repealed or changed in the meantime.
A cursory review shows some areas of the code haven’t kept up with technological development. “Telegraph” appears five times in the code, “fax” 16 times, “telex” four times.
For many departments, the guide suggests that reducing training requirements or eliminating parts of mandatory forms could earn credit toward the governor’s goal, even if the main regulation stays in place.
“Consider, for instance, a requirement that an applicant for a professional license complete 1,000 hours of training before he or she can be certified. Some training is necessary, so the requirement should not be eliminated completely, but 1,000 hours may be excessive. Requiring 500 hours of training, for instance, may be sufficient,” the guide states.
Fairbanks writer Dermot Cole, a frequent critic of the Dunleavy administration, noted online that doctors are required by regulation to take 25 credit-hours of continuing-education classes each year. Under the guide, the state is encouraging Alaska’s state medical board to reduce that requirement, he argues.
The guide states that when eliminating requirements, “agencies should be mindful of the important role of regulations in promoting public health, safety, and welfare, and developing our natural resources, and should not eliminate any requirements that are critical to protecting the public and the environment.”
Deadlines approach for early action
Already, state agencies have flooded Alaska’s public notice system with requests for Alaskans submit suggestions for regulations to eliminate. The first deadlines to do so are this week.
According to a draft schedule, agencies have until Jan. 5 to draft “a proposed plan setting forth regulations identified for reform based upon stakeholder meetings.”
Final plans should be posted for review no later than Feb. 1.
Further squeezing agencies is a requirement that they submit guidance documents — materials that tell Alaskans how to follow regulations — to the Department of Law for review. By Feb. 1, the department will make a determination whether those documents should themselves become regulations.
If they do, that would mean the agencies would have to make further cuts in order to fit their guidance documents within the number of regulations they’re allowed.
The state’s baseline number of regulations — a figure that will dictate how many regulations must be cut under the governor’s plan — was supposed to be published by Oct. 13, according to the draft schedule. It has not yet been finalized.
Seven agencies have completed or substantially completed their baseline count information, according to a spokesperson for the Department of Law. The remaining agencies have asked for an extension.
The Alaska Public Interest Research Group, a consumer watchdog, has been following the governor’s project with some alarm. It’s particularly concerned with upcoming changes to utility regulations.
“We support thoughtful, periodic review of regulations to make sure they’re effective and up to date. But this process isn’t that. By setting an arbitrary target for cuts and moving at breakneck speed, the state is creating a chaotic process that favors well-organized industry interests, leaves the public at a disadvantage, and places unnecessary strain on state agencies already stretched thin,” said AKPIRG regulatory analyst Brian Kassof.
“Regulations exist to protect the public interest and provide stability and certainty for communities and businesses. This rush to eliminate 15% of regulations across our state agencies does not leave adequate time for meaningful public engagement and risks creating unintended consequences that will be much harder to fix later.”
Alaska’s program follows others in Idaho and Virginia
Dunleavy’s program is modeled after a similar one that began in Virginia in 2022, Cox said. That one was itself modeled after a different but similar effort in Idaho that started in 2019.
Both of those programs had the support of prominent national conservative groups, including the Federalist Society and the American Legislative Exchange Council, which has offered example programs to states for them to use.
Think-tanks like the Heritage Foundation have called Virginia’s program a “role model for other states,” and the Hoover Institution praised both Virginia’s system and a newly launched one in Texas.
In July, after three years of work, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin held a ceremony to celebrate the fact that his state had beaten its 25% regulation-reduction goal.
That event showed the similarities and differences between that state’s program and the one in the works for Alaska, which has fewer state agencies and regulations.
Youngkin, for example, praised the elimination of tens of thousands of regulations related to home construction, something he claimed had reduced the cost of new homes in the state.
Here in Alaska, the state doesn’t regulate home construction. In Alaska’s administrative code, the word “house” appears only 316 times, and is more likely to apply to housing assistance or an ice fishing house than a residential structure.
Virginia’s program significantly reduced the rules governing how stormwater runoff is regulated. Andrew Wheeler, former EPA director for President Donald Trump, launched Virgnia’s program for Youngkin and said that before he started work, Virginia’s stormwater regulations formed a stack 23 inches high. Afterward, the stack was five inches high.
In Alaska’s administrative code, the word “stormwater” appears just seven times.
The federal government has taken steps toward regulatory reform under multiple Republican and Democratic administrations, but during the first Trump administration, the president tried regulatory budgeting and ordered that two federal regulations be repealed for every new one. That was new.
“They adopted something called regulatory budgeting, and so they would look for ways to reduce the number,” Cox said.
Something similar will be in place in Alaska. If an agency wants to enact a new regulation, it needs to find another to remove, while also pursuing additional removals to meet the 25% goal.
Cox said AO 360 was issued with the federal context and other states’ context in mind.
“It’s with that goal of really unleashing the Alaska economy and inviting new investment into Alaska, that is motivating the governor in terms of why this is appropriate,” he said.
In this photo provided by the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, Alaska Air National Guard rescue personnel conduct a search and rescue mission in Kipnuk, Alaska, on Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (Defense Visual Information Distribution Service via AP)
AP- One of the most significant airlifts in Alaska history was underway Wednesday to move hundreds of people from coastal villages ravaged by high surf and strong winds from the remnants of Typhoon Halong last weekend, officials said.
The storm brought record water levels to two low-lying communities and washed away homes — some with people inside. At least one person was killed and two are missing. Makeshift shelters were quickly established and swelled to about 1,500 people, an extraordinary number in a sparsely populated region where communities are reachable by air or water.
The remoteness and the scale of the destruction created challenges for getting resources in place. Damage assessments have been trickling in as responders have shifted from initial search-and-rescue operations to trying to stabilize or restore basic services.
The communities of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok near the Bering Sea saw water levels more than 6 feet (1.8 meters) above the highest normal tide line. Leaders asked the state to evacuate the more than 1,000 residents in those villages, said Jeremy Zidek, a spokesperson with the state emergency management office.
Some homes cannot be reoccupied, even with emergency repairs, and others may not be livable by winter, said emergency management officials. Forecasters say rain and snow is possible in the region this weekend, with average temperatures soon below freezing.
Mark Roberts, the incident commander with the state emergency management agency, said the immediate focus was on “making sure people are safe, warm and cared for while we work with our partners to restore essential services.”
Meantime, restrooms were again working at the school in Kwigillingok, where about 350 people had sheltered overnight Tuesday, according to a state emergency management statement. “Damage to many homes is severe, and the community leadership is instructing residents not to reenter homes due to safety concerns,” it said.
About 300 evacuees were being brought to Anchorage on Wednesday, about 500 miles (805 kilometers) east of the battered coastline villages, according to the state Department of Military and Veterans Affairs. They were going to the Alaska Airlines Center, a sports and events complex with capacity for about 400, Zidek said.
Shelter space closer to home — in the southwest Alaska regional hub of Bethel — had been reaching capacity, officials said.
Zidek did not know how long the evacuation process would take and said authorities were looking for additional sheltering locations. The aim is to get people from congregate shelters into hotel rooms or dormitories, he said.
The crisis unfolding in southwest Alaska has drawn attention to Trump administration cuts to grants aimed at helping small, mostly Indigenous villages prepare for storms or mitigate disaster risks.
For example, a $20 million U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant to Kipnuk, which was inundated by floodwaters, was terminated by the Trump administration, a move challenged by environmental groups. The grant was intended to protect to protect the boardwalk residents use to get around the community as well as 1,400 feet (430 meters) of river from erosion, according to a federal website that tracks government spending.
There was limited work on the project before the grant was ended. The village had purchased a bulldozer for shipment and briefly hired a bookkeeper, according to Public Rights Project, which represents Kipnuk.
The group said no single project was likely to prevent the recent flood. But work to remove abandoned fuel tanks and other material to prevent it from falling into the river might have been feasible during the 2025 construction season.
“What’s happening in Kipnuk shows the real cost of pulling back support that was already promised to front line communities,” said Jill Habig, CEO of Public Rights Project. “These grants were designed to help local governments prepare for and adapt to the growing effects of climate change. When that commitment is broken, it puts people’s safety, homes and futures at risk.”
Residents of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok wait in the Alaska Army National Guard Readiness Center’s hanger in Bethel for an evacuation flight to Anchorage on Oct 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Residents of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok began evacuating en masse on Wednesday, flying in military aircraft from their western Alaska communities which were devastated by ex-Typhoon Halong.
On Wednesday evening, the first 300 evacuees embarked on a C-17 military transport plane from Bethel to make the one-hour journey to Anchorage and emergency shelter there.
“Just devastated, feeling heartbroken, displaced,” said Jody Agimuk of Kipnuk, standing with his wife Kristin, and their five young children, waiting in line to board in the Alaska Army National Guard hangar.
Jody and Kristin Agimuk and their five young children evacuated from the community of Kipnuk after ex-Typhoon Halong. They landed in Bethel on Wednesday and were on the first large evacuation flight to Anchorage on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
“I hope we find a place,” he said of arriving in Anchorage. “It’s hard to explain, I hope we won’t have a hard time finding a place.”
He said since the storm hit Sunday, they sheltered at their grandmother’s and one night at the local school, and evacuated on Wednesday. “It’s just hard — leaving families at home, separating with families that we were close to. People we’ve seen, people we knew, people we used to talk to, all the close relatives, it’s heartbreaking seeing people separating.”
The rest of the village of Kipnuk is scheduled to be evacuated on Thursday, and Kwigillingok by Friday, said Lieutenant Colonel Brendan Holbrook, commander of the 207th Aviation Troop Command with the Alaska Army National Guard.
He said roughly 500 people had been evacuated to Bethel so far out of those two villages by members of the Alaska Army National Guard and Alaska Air National Guard. The C-17 plane can only transport 300 people, so the rest would shelter in Bethel overnight and more flights would be available out to Anchorage on Thursday morning.
“I have five aircraft, four UH-60s and CH-47 in support operations, doing evac. And we’ve been running basically 12 to 14-hour operations every day getting these people to safety,” he said.
Evacuees depart on the first C-17 military flight from Bethel to Anchorage on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
In the Alaska Army National Guard Readiness Center in Bethel, evacuees waited, some resting on cots, as officers read lists of names and groups of 30 people at a time boarded the plane.
Holbrook said evacuation was self-organized by community members, with families with children and elders prioritized.
“So it was primarily Kipnuk today, if the call comes back, we can do Kwig (Kwigillingok) tomorrow,” he said “But prioritization was just who was available and ready to go. So we would go to both and whoever got on got on. Kipnuk just happened to be, they had already established a marshaling plan, so as soon as we landed, they were ready with people to just start loading.”
Those who did not get on the Wednesday evening flight were sheltering in Bethel, some in an emergency shelter across the road from the Readiness Center hanger, administered by the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation with the support from the American Red Cross. Cots, showers and meals were provided there.
Holbrook added that there is a misconception that evacuees must go to Anchorage. He said once in Bethel, regional tribal organizations like the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corporation are providing support for people to travel wherever they like. “If you have a place to go, another village, family, somewhere else, Y-K will help you get to where you need to go,” he said.
Evacuees board from Kipnuk and Kwigillingok board a C17 military transport plane in Bethel on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Members of the Alaska Army National Guard and Alaska Air National Guard are assisting with the evacuation of residents, seen in Bethel on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Members of the Members of the Alaska Army National Guard read a list of names of evacuees to board the first flight from Bethel to Anchorage on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Jody and Kristin Agimuk and their five young children evacuated from the community of Kipnuk after ex-Typhoon Halong. They landed in Bethel on Wednesday and were on the first large evacuation flight to Anchorage on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Cots set up at the shelter at the Alaska Army National Guard Readiness Center in Bethel for evacuees of ex-Typhoon Halong provided by the American Red Cross on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Evacuees from Kipnuk and Kwigillingok rest and eat dinner on Oct. 15, 2025 at an emergency shelter at the Alaska National Guard Readiness Center in Bethel (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Evacuees wait in line to board the first evacuation flight from Bethel to Anchorage at the Alaska Army National Guard Readiness Center in Bethel, on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
A family is seen stepping out on to the runway in Bethel to board the first evacuation flight to Anchorage on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Evacuees from Kipnuk and Kwigillingok were allowed to bring one bag of personal items to evacuate after ex-Typhoon Halong, seen stacked in the Alaska Army National Guard Readiness Center in Bethel, awaiting transport to Anchorage on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Evacuees wait for their name to be called by members of the Alaska National Guard, for a flight from Bethel to Anchorage on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
A Blackhawk helicopter used to evacuate residents from storm devastated communities of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok fuels up in Bethel on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska Army National Guard Readiness Center in Bethel hosted an evacuation shelter for ex-Typhoon Halong storm evacuees on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Residents who evacuated from Kipnuk and Kwigillingok wait to board an evacuation flight in Bethel on Oct. 15, 2025 (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
NOTN- A 50-year-old Juneau man was arrested this week after investigators intercepted a package containing more than 200 grams of fentanyl that was shipped to the capital city, according to a press release by the Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs (SEACAD) task force.
Investigators identified the suspicious package on October 12 and determined it contained about 219 grams of fentanyl, SEACAD said. The next day, the package was delivered to Joshua R. Riley, who allegedly took it to All-Star Auto, a business in the 900 block of West 10th Street.
Officers executed a search warrant after he opened the package. In addition to the fentanyl, SEACAD agents said they seized other drugs, including 10.12 grams of heroin, 8.2 grams of psilocybin mushrooms, 4.89 grams of methamphetamine, and another 0.66 grams of fentanyl in a separate package. A digital scale was also found.
Riley was arrested and taken to Lemon Creek Correctional Center on federal charges of Attempted Possession with Intent to Deliver and Conspiracy to Distribute Controlled Substances.
The seized narcotics have an estimated combined street value of about $111,000, SEACAD said.
SEACAD, Southeast Alaska Cities Against Drugs, is a regional task force comprised of municipal police departments from Juneau, Ketchikan, Sitka, Haines, Skagway, Petersburg, Hoonah, Wrangell, Craig, and Yakutat, the Alaska State Troopers, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Drug Enforcement Administration, United States Postal Inspection Service, and Coast Guard Investigative Service. Together, they work to investigate drug importation and distribution in the Southeast Alaska region.
