Alaska storm damage so bad many evacuees won’t go home for at least 18 months, governor says

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ANCHORAGE — Damage to remote Alaska villages hammered by flooding last weekend is so extreme that many of the more than 2,000 people displaced won’t be able to return to their homes for at least 18 months, Gov. Mike Dunleavy said in a request to the White House for a major disaster declaration.

In one of the hardest hit villages, Kipnuk, an initial assessment showed that 121 homes — or 90% — have been destroyed, Dunleavy wrote. In Kwigillingok, where three dozen homes floated away, more than one-third of the residences are uninhabitable.

The remnants of Typhoon Halong struck western Alaska with the ferocity of a Category 2 hurricane, Dunleavy said, sending a surge of high surf in