The forecast flooding never reached Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, and the state's account of the week stops on Sept. 24

The flooding the state actually recorded this week came three days before the warning was cancelled, and it came from the rivers, not the coast the warning covered. Two days on, no public record says how any of the four villages fared.

The National Weather Service office in Anchorage cancelled its coastal flood warning for Kipnuk and Kwigillingok at 9:44 p.m. Friday, ending four days of escalating warnings for a storm that tracked south of the Kuskokwim Delta coast. "Water levels along the Kuskokwim Delta coastline have receded and the low is tracking south of the area," the cancellation says.

On Monday, Sept. 21, the State Emergency Operations Center logged a report from Kasigluk "of one home inundated, additional high water surrounding other residences, and a possible oil sheen." The same report placed high water at Kwethluk approximately 6 to 8 feet above normal, "with some road access affected and water surrounding multiple residences and the new school." It attributed Kasigluk's high water to elevated levels on the Johnson and Kuskokwim rivers.

Neither village is on the coast. Neither was named in the coastal flood warning. Both were named in another. A Flood Watch for the Interior Kuskokwim Delta, issued at 12:43 p.m. Sept. 22, covered Kwethluk, Bethel, Kasigluk and Akiachak, and said confidence was "moderate-to-high that flooding of low-lying areas will occur for Kwethluk and Kasigluk, where high-water was reported last week."

The coastal warning followed 53 minutes later, for the Kuskokwim Delta Coast and Nunivak Island. The weather service issued it first as a watch at 1:36 p.m. on Sept. 22, forecasting water 1 to 2 feet above the normal highest tide line at Kwigillingok, with 4 feet in a worst case. The office upgraded the watch to a warning at 11 a.m. the following day and raised the numbers to 1.5 to 2.5 feet, worst case 5 feet.

One sentence entered the product then and stayed in every version afterward: "If water levels rise to 2.5 feet, impacts would be comparable to the August 2024 storm." The state's Sept. 24 report said NOAA expected this storm, Ex-Dujuan, to be less impactful than Ex-Halong of October 2025.

At 11:25 a.m. Friday the office cut the forecast to an average of 0.6 to 1.6 feet and wrote that "Significant moderate-to-major flood impacts are no longer expected." Minor flood impacts were still expected at Kwigillingok and Kipnuk.

FEMA's disaster record for the Native Village of Kwigillingok documents DR-4857, with an incident period of Aug. 15 to 18, 2024. FEMA's data lists DR-4853 for the Native Village of Kipnuk, covering Aug. 16 to 18. Kipnuk also holds DR-4912 for the remnants of Typhoon Halong, and DR-4893 covers ten more western Alaska areas. All four are Public Assistance declarations, which repay governments for public damage. One also paid households: DR-4893 approved $62.7 million in household assistance, including 285 registrations from Kipnuk and 129 from Kwigillingok.

The state's posture never changed. The emergency operations center reported Preparedness Level 2, Heightened Awareness, on all sixteen September situation reports reviewed, covering Sept. 1 through Sept. 24, and was still at Level 2 Saturday. It reported contacting warning-area communities and staying in touch with the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

The Sept. 24 report said the next edition would publish Sept. 25. No such report has appeared at either the division's current or archive path. The inland watch was cancelled at 10:39 a.m. Friday with the record's only all-clear: water levels "are expected to drop without significant flood impacts." Nothing reports observed water levels or damage at the four villages.

The account here comes from weather service products, state situation reports and the federal declarations record. No resident, tribal council, city, school district or village corporation appears anywhere in those records, and none describes what the flooded household in Kasigluk faced or what became of the reported oil sheen. The division directs questions to the State Emergency Operations Center at 907-428-7100 or [email protected].