Typhoon Merbok Coastal Community Impacts

Typhoon/coastal community impact: tasks and benefits 2023

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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.

USGS work in western Alaska following Typhoon Merbok: 
Disaster Emergency Recovery Efforts 
Disaster Recovery Accomplishments

• Funding supports coastal mapping products, as well as operational and long-term forecasts, to help communities assess increased coastal hazard risks after Typhoon Merbok and guide rebuilding efforts.
•  Products include permanent high-water flood markers; stakeholder co-developed interactive mapping tools showing shoreline change and modeled flood and erosion risks; and tools for capturing real-time coastal observations and forecasting flood hazards.
• The USGS worked with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to establish six new real-time water level observing stations that integrate with the National Water Level Observation Network and fill observational data gaps for community risk reduction; NOAA assumes management and maintenance of the completed stations..

Return to 2023 Supplemental Appropriations Activities.