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The special delivery arrived in a plastic storage box after a chartered flight in a bouncy single-propeller aircraft. Veterinarian Susan Schaefer Sookrum broke the zip ties securing the lid and welcomed the cargo: four dogs, one with a gray collar named Happy.
“What a scary ride!” He said. “You made it!”
as officers alaska Working around the clock on one of the most significant airlift operations in the state’s history – evacuating more than 1,000 people from remote, flood-stricken villages on the coast of the Bering Sea – another rescue operation is underway: moving dogs to safety, in the hopes of later reuniting them with their owners.
The pet shelters closest to the destroyed villages are betelA regional center about 90 miles (150 kilometers) away by boat or plane.
When Bethel Friends of Canines, a nonprofit that helps rehabilitate animals, learned that 50 to 100 dogs might have been abandoned in one village, Kipnuk, it began chartering a plane to evacuate them.
“It costs us $3,000 to do this and we don’t know how many times we’ll have to do it,” organizer Jessalyn Elliott said by phone Wednesday. “We’ve never seen a natural disaster of this magnitude. So this is all very, very foreign and new to us. So we’re just getting the hang of it.”
The first flight arrived in Bethel on Wednesday night, and more flights followed on Thursday. Dozens of dogs have passed through his kennel since the flooding began. The nonprofit raised more than $22,000 after requesting donations on Facebook.
According to FEMA, flooding caused by the remnants of Typhoon Halong has damaged homes in 11 small rural communities with no more than a few hundred residents. Many homes cannot be repaired until next summer because winter temperatures and snowfall are forecast this month.
State officials started airlifting people anchorage On Wednesday, local leaders in Kipnuk and Quigilingok, near the Bering Sea, asked residents to evacuate and the shelter in Bethel was nearing capacity. At least one resident of Quigilingoc was confirmed dead, and the search for two others was called off after they were swept away.
domestic animal Military evacuations were not allowed on flights. State officials have said that evacuating people is a priority.
Bethel Friends of Canines received dogs throughout the week as people fleeing their homes arrived by boat and plane. There are no roads connecting towns in the area.
Many pet owners want them back soon, but need time to prepare temporary housing in cities like Anchorage and Nome, which are more than 250 miles (400 kilometers) apart.
Before the devastating flood, Bethel Friends of Canines typically housed 15 to 20 dogs at a time. Now more than 15 dogs have come on a single flight. Elliott hopes most of the additional dogs will stay at Bethel temporarily before being reunited with their owners or extended family who can foster them.
At least eight dogs in Anchorage had been reunited with their owners as of Thursday morning, she said.
Emergency management officials said Wednesday that homes in affected villages were so damaged that many of them were uninhabitable in winter, and forecasters said rain and snow could occur later this week.
With the human population at Kipnuk decreasing every day, the animal caretakers at Bethel realized they had to act fast, before everyone knew the dogs were gone.
“There will be no one left there,” veterinarian Sukram said in a phone interview. “We have to accelerate how animals will leave places that previously could only be reached by helicopter and now small planes.”
Some of the last people to stay behind and serve the community are teachers. schools Have served as emergency shelters and meeting places through relief efforts in flooded towns.
In Kipnuk, teacher Jackie Lang found Happy, a gray collared dog, waiting on his owner’s clothes, refusing to move or eat. She said in a text message that the dog has now been reunited with its family.
According to Andrew ‘Hannibal’ Anderson, superintendent of the Lower Kuskokwim School District, he was one of two or three teachers who helped load the pets onto the runway.
When Bethel Friends of Canine worker Matthew Morgan arrived at Kipnuk on Wednesday, teachers fed the dogs, placed them in baskets and placed tags on them listing their owners.
“You’ve got some heroes in Kipnuk. They’re like the last people left there,” Morgan said. Without them, “it would have been chasing dogs in the mud all night.”
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Associated Press writer Jesse Bedayan in Denver contributed.