Residual storms Typhoon Halong They tore through western Alaska with such ferocity that they pulled Steven Annaver’s house off its foundation and floated him through the choppy waters — with him in it.
Videos he shared Monday with The Associated Press convey the desperate scene as water rose inside his home and floods raged outside.
High winds from storm surge and record-high water levels devastated several small communities on October 12, displacing more than 2,000 people and requiring one of the world’s most severe disasters. Important air transportation operations In Alaska history.
At least one person was killed, and two others were missing.
The water began to rise quickly on Saturday night in the village of Kuijelinguk, where Anavir lives. It is one of the two hardest-hit Yup’ik communities.
Anavir looked out his window into complete darkness. The power had been cut off for a long time.
The storm was the worst he had seen. At about 3 a.m. on Sunday, the water level jumped, reaching his knees in about 10 minutes.
Soon, the house swayed, tilted, and began to float.
Plastic bags, boxes of blankets, leather shoes and furniture cushions appeared in videos taken from the inside by Anafer. The walls swayed like a ship.
Outside, dark water engulfed the house just a few feet from the window as the house drifted away. Anavir heard loud explosions, and a frigid wind rushed through a hole opened in one of the walls.
“This was a big challenge for my anxiety,” he said. “I kept calling my family.”
More booms rocked the house as waves crashed into other structures.
“Oh my God,” he wrote in a Facebook post around 5:30 a.m
Anavir tried to take photos to point out where he was — the camera could see better than his eyes in the dark — but to no avail until the moon appeared later that morning.
He could see a house he recognized. He floated for about a mile.
A small hill with a plank sticking out of it stopped Annaver’s house a few feet from the river, which had dragged other houses much farther away.
After 7 a.m., when the water had receded enough, two neighbors came and helped him out.
Three days later, Anafer posted a video on Facebook of hours drifting in his home.
“I was inches away from death,” he wrote. “I ran away.”