Post-typhoon Merbok impact on geographically isolated western Alaska communities and sustainable recovery process for vulnerable populations

Abstract

A sustainable climate-resilient community depends on their location and what is considered to be resilient. In western Alaska, primarily sustainable Indigenous subsistence lifestyle communities have proven quite resilient to climate for over 5000 years. Indigenous communities have been experiencing exponentially greater challenges from changes of climate in recent years. One storm, which traversed the entire 1300-mile geographically isolated Alaska west coast in September 2022, was more significant than previous generations. Extratropical post-typhoon Merbok became part of a disaster cascade as many communities had already endured various disasters to their locations and livelihoods which made them more vulnerable to include prior climate-related land erosion, damage to infrastructure, food insecurity, and sustainable livelihood. Mitigation, response, and recovery planning policies are typically addressed from an urban and rural perspective but changes are needed to address the challenges found in remote and geographically isolated locations, which include the vulnerable populations. Federal, state, and local planning has not understood, nor taken into consideration, historical Indigenous knowledge of continual adaptation to climate. This dissertation will look at Merbok as a single storm, how Merbok cascaded and exacerbated existing problems of housing, food, geography, and infrastructure insecurity, and compare Merbok to similar storms impacting geographically isolated locations with similar underserved vulnerable populations. The findings and conclusions from this research will benefit local to federal emergency management professionals in addressing and adapting plans for communities in geographically isolated locations.