Flooding Alaskan villages may get bridges

Residents of two villages on the northwestern Alaska coast hope new money will help pay for evacuation routes to high ground, reports the Anchorage Daily News.

Kivalina and Shaktoolik are close to getting $555,000 from the Denali Commission to pay for emergency road plans.

The two Inupiat communities are losing ground to the Bering and Chukchi seas because warmer autumns create more storms and melt shorefast ice that once stopped waves.

Shaktoolik, between the Bering Sea and Tagoomenik River, has been overcome by severe floods in the last three years. With each big storm, the village of 224 becomes an island in the sea, and rivers and trails leading to the mainland disappear. Kivalina, an island 90 km. northwest of Kotzebue, has likewise been flooded repeatedly by waters from the Chukchi Sea.

In recent years, officials have considered relocating the villages, but cost estimates in the hundreds of millions of dollars have slowed the discussion. This may be the first time escape roads and bridges, offering a cheaper short-term fix, will be built, says the ADN.

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