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Typhoon Merbok Coastal Community Impacts

By Supplemental Appropriations for Disaster Recovery Activities

In FY 2023, USGS received disaster supplement funds (Public Law 117-328) to assess increased risks to coastal communities.

A building lifted from its foundation by floodwater from Typhoon Merbok is trapped under a bridge in Nome, Alaska
Sources/Usage: Public Domain.
A building lifted from its foundation by floodwater from Extratropical Typhoon Merbok is trapped under a bridge in Nome, Alaska.

Specific tasks and benefits

As Typhoon Merbok barreled across the Bering Sea and western Alaska, hurricane-strength winds, extreme storm surge, and high waves impacted more than 35 Alaska Native communities along a 1,300-mile stretch of coast. Flooding and winds destroyed or damaged homes, infrastructure, property, utilities, and subsistence fish camps, while eroding large sections of coast.

  • Funding will be used to provide coastal mapping products and operational and long-term forecasts to aid communities in assessing increased risks to coastal hazards after Typhoon Merbok and to guide rebuilding efforts. Products will include permanent high-water flood markers, stakeholder co-developed interactive mapping tools of shoreline change and modeled flood and erosion risks, and tools for capturing real-time coastal observations and forecasting of flood hazards.
  • The USGS will also work with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to establish 5–6 new real-time water level observing stations to integrate with the National Water Level Observation Network and fill observational data gaps for community risk reduction; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will assume management and maintenance of the newly completed stations.

Return to 2023 Supplemental Appropriations Activities.