Search & Rescue
RSSSearch and rescue (SAR) in Alaska is the network of missions that find and recover people lost, injured or stranded on land, water, ice or in the air. The Coast Guard, Alaska State Troopers and volunteer groups carry out backcountry, maritime, aviation and avalanche rescues statewide.
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Photo: United States Coast Guard, PA1 Kurt Fredrickson via Wikimedia Commons · Photo source · Public domain
Coast Guard icebreaker that watched Chinese ships in the Arctic stops in Juneau
The Coast Guard icebreaker Storis is in Juneau this week for a brief port call, near the end of a 134-day deployment in which it kept watch on Chinese research ships in the Arctic.
The ship covered more than 17,000 miles in the Arctic Ocean and what the Coast Guard calls the Alaska Theater of Operations, the Coast Guard's Arctic District said. It heads next to Seattle, its temporary home port, until the Coast Guard is ready to base it in Juneau.
The Arctic District had the Storis this year but not the Healy, Lt. Cmdr. Jedediah Raskie of the district told the North Pacific Fishery Management Council on Oct. 8. The Healy, another Coast Guard polar icebreaker, suffered what the Coast Guard called a significant engineering casualty off Washington state and was towed back to its home port July 13 for major repairs.
Four Chinese research ships were in the Bering Sea and Arctic from July through October, Raskie said. He showed their tracks over the U.S. extended continental shelf claim, an area of seafloor beyond 200 nautical miles from the coast. "It's apparent that the U.S. extended continental shelf claim is a primary area where they operate," Raskie said.
The Storis consistently monitored the ships there and passed along State Department language on the prohibition against marine scientific research without approval, he said. The Coast Guard did not say that any violation occurred. The Storis also made runs along the U.S.-Russia maritime boundary line, Raskie said. The crew's missions also include search and rescue and fisheries law enforcement, according to the district.
The Storis didn't start out as a Coast Guard ship. It was built in 2012 as the Aiviq, a 360-foot commercial icebreaker that supported oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea and went to Antarctica twice. The Coast Guard bought it in November 2024 for $125 million, the first polar icebreaker added to its fleet in more than 25 years, to help fill the gap while it waits for new icebreakers to be built.
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Latest
Week of Nov 2
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Week of Oct 26
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Week of Oct 19
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About Search & Rescue
Search and rescue in Alaska takes in the missions that find and recover people who are lost, injured or stranded on land, water, ice or in the air. The agencies that carry them out include the Coast Guard, Alaska State Troopers, the Alaska Air National Guard, local police and volunteer search groups.
Backcountry missions reach overdue hikers, hunters with medical emergencies and pilots after crashes, often by helicopter. Maritime missions respond to people who go overboard, sinking vessels and stranded boaters, and bad weather can ground a search. Silver Alerts and police appeals seek missing older adults and children in towns.
Many searches end in the recovery of a body rather than a rescue, and others turn on bystanders such as fishermen and firefighters who find people first. Distress beacons, rescue aircraft and searches coordinated across agencies are the tools these missions share.
More from Search & Rescue
Week of Oct 12
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Week of Oct 5
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Week of Sep 28
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Week of Sep 21
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Week of Sep 7
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