Officials in Alaska rushed Tuesday to evacuate and find housing for people from tiny coastal villages devastated by the remnants of Typhoon Halong. But the remote location and severe damage are limiting their options as they race against other impending storms and the onset of winter.

High winds and storm surge battered low-lying, isolated Alaska Native communities along the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta in southwest Alaska, nearly 500 miles (800 km) from Anchorage, over the weekend. The Coast Guard plucked two dozen people from their homes after the structures floated out to sea in high water, three people were missing or dead, and hundreds of people were staying in school shelters — including one with no working toilets, officials said.

Rick Thoman, an Alaska climate specialist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, noted that even if supplies could be brought in immediately, it is too late in the year to rebuild.

“Indigenous communities in Alaska are resilient," Thoman said. “But, you know, when you have an entire community where effectively every house is damaged and many of them will be uninhabitable with winter knocking at the door now, there’s only there’s only so much that any individual or any small community can do.”