Typhoon Merbok Coastal Community Impacts
In FY 2023, USGS received disaster supplement funds (Public Law 117-328) to assess increased risks to coastal communities.
Typhoon/coastal community impact: tasks and benefits 2023
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.
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Typhoon Merbok Disaster Emergency Recovery Efforts
Extreme storm events, such as Extratropical-Typhoon Merbok that hit the coast of Western Alaska in September 2022, are stark reminders of the devastating impacts coastal storms can have on Alaska Native community’s livelihoods and infrastructure. A chronic lack of environmental monitoring and technical assistance in rural Alaska present major barriers to communities affected by Typhoon Merbok...
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Extreme storm events, such as Extratropical-Typhoon Merbok that hit the coast of Western Alaska in September 2022, are stark reminders of the devastating impacts coastal storms can have on Alaska Native community’s livelihoods and infrastructure. A chronic lack of environmental monitoring and technical assistance in rural Alaska present major barriers to communities affected by Typhoon Merbok...