Grantee Spotlight: “After Halong” Northern Journal/Anchorage Press

Lydia Tucker pauses for a photo while repairing a home in Kwigillingok in June. The home was damaged by flooding from ex-Typhoon Halong. Tucker, who is from the village, evacuated during the storm but returned with a construction crew that's helping to rebuild. (Katie Baldwin Basile for Northern Journal)

When the remnant winds and rain of Typhoon Halong shifted course in October of 2025, striking small, coastal communities in Western Alaska, it was clear that the impacts in these remote communities would last much longer than the immediate storm surge. The water swept homes off their foundations with residents inside, killed at least two, and set off what is believed to be the largest airlift evacuation in state history.

Northern Journal — now publishing as the Anchorage Press — has been visiting with community members who remain evacuated hundreds of miles from their homes, who have returned to their villages, or who never left in the first place. Both those home and away long for the familiarity of their small communities. Those who returned, or never left, clean up the pieces and the muck, and rebuild, both for themselves and others.

Photojournalist Katie Basile’s photography and interviews with residents of Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, tell their stories in detail. They, and hundreds of others, survived the treacherous night, were evacuated by military airplane, and sent to seek shelter either in Anchorage, the state’s largest city, or Bethel, the regional hub.

Basile’s earned the trust of her story subjects: an all-women construction crew, and a pair of cousins who are doing the dirty work to bring their communities and families home. But the future of these communities is in limbo. As shifting weather patterns threaten Western Alaska more often, what does bureaucracy hold? Should homes and villages be rebuilt in the same place, where a more-than 6-foot storm surge washed homes away?

“There are few stories more essential than following the aftermath of Typhoon Halong,” said Northern Journal/Anchorage Press editor Nathaniel Herz. He credits regional public broadcaster KYUK, in Bethel, with doing the “critical work covering the storm and the challenges and work that have followed.” (KYUK is also an ACEJ Public Media News Preservation Grant recipient, and has received a National Edward R. Murrow award for its coverage of the storm). The station’s news site features updates on the storm recovery regularly, including Northern Journal’s coverage.

“Grant funding from ACEJ is allowing Northern Journal/Anchorage Press to complement KYUK's coverage with stories of evacuees that are playing out far from the region in Anchorage, and in remote villages that are expensive for reporters to reach.” 

Part 1: After Halong: The Ones Who Stayed

Part 2: After Halong: Return and Recovery

Related: Haunted by Halong (Published by The Margin, with photography from Katie Basile)

Stay tuned, as more work is underway.