When I asked Patrick Capaq Andrew about how he and his family were doing this summer, he told me to answer that, you first have to understand what happened a year ago. No story picks up in the middle, even if the middle is easier to talk about.
“Seems like every person has a different story, even though we went through the same storm,” Andrew said.
Andrew, his wife, and their three children left their home to shelter in Kipnuk’s school overnight on Oct. 11, 2025. It’s about then that his phone started ringing — he’s a member of Kipnuk’s search and rescue team and was chosen as head coordinator for the night of the storm.
“We couldn't do anything. We couldn't go out and help people asking for help,” Andrew remembered.
It was a hard night, Andrew said, spent fearing for the people he could not reach sheltering in their houses. Then, somehow, the morning came.
“The sunrise was so beautiful. The water was like glass, and like nothing happened last night,” Andrew said. “But there was destruction. There was water everywhere, houses all over the place.”
Ninety percent of Kipnuk’s buildings suffered damage from the storm. Houses formed a pile outside of the school. Others had been swept miles downriver.
While the United States Coast Guard arrived by helicopter, Andrew said that some community members who hadn’t lost their boats to the surge were able to ferry others to safety at the school. We sat there as we spoke almost a year later, looking out the window at a reconfigured neighborhood.
“There was a line of people on that bridge across there, and he was, one guy was going back and forth to the other side, to this side of the boardwalks,” Andrew said.
Two days later, Andrew’s family was evacuated with most of the village to Bethel, and then to Anchorage. He said that through it all, his mind remained focused on how to fix Kipnuk.
“My thoughts were here, right here. I didn't think of anything else. I was thinking how to fix the problems and how to fix what was destroyed,” Andrew said.
Now, a year after that night, Andrew and the greater Kipnuk community are still, in many ways, in the middle of the story.
Andrew and his family landed in Fairbanks where a family member offered a space to stay.
“I think we were the only evacuees in Fairbanks along with another family ... but they moved on after a couple months in Fairbanks,” Andrew said.
Andrew and his family felt supported by the community and local tribal government. A woman they met at a donation drive offered them a place to rent with the first few months free.
“I mean, it felt a little overwhelming. It felt a little scary because of not knowing, not knowing anything, not knowing the future, not knowing about [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] rental assistance, any of that,” Andrew explained. “But [it] felt like everything just fell into place day after day.”
Andrew said that his kids, ages 10, 12, and 14, were sad to be away from friends, but liked their new school. His son learned how to swim. Playing in Tanana Lakes Park, his kids would yell and run freely. He said that moments like that felt closest to home, but so many aspects of city life were so different from what his kids had grown up with.
Andrew remembered a moment walking with his son in Anchorage.
“He jumped on the on the road in Anchorage, but fortunately there was no traffic right there. But still, it was scary for me,” Andrew said. “We had to tell the kids over and over again to, this is not like home.”
Last winter, the family began thinking about how they could return to Kipnuk. In June, Andrew got a job back in the village with Brice Construction, working to repair the boardwalks and other infrastructure. It was good to be back in Kipnuk where there are no cars and his kids could return to freedom.
“We got out of the airplane, and my kids went their own separate ways. My daughter went with one of her friends, and my other daughter went to the school, and my son went somewhere,” Andrew said. “They were at home, you know?”
Andrew said that over the summer months, he saw a radical transformation in the village’s rebuild. He said that Kipnuk is returning to itself.
“It looked impossible when I first saw it. I mean, like, how are we gonna? But then, but then it just happened day by day, piece by piece, small wood splinter at a time,” Andrew said. “The results are amazing for me.”
Andrew said that it's a healing time for him, helping rebuild his community after he felt he couldn’t help the night of the storm.
“About the same time every night, I'd start feeling feeling that emotion. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't like in a panic mode, but I was thinking a lot and made me lose sleep for for a while,” Andrew explained. “So coming back is good for me. I mean, for me it's good because I feel like I'm turning what I couldn't that night to, turning it to something positive. That's what I feel like I'm a part of today.”
Andrew said that he knows people who said they would never come back, but are here, working on the rebuild.
“Some of them, when they come back their perspective changes and they were like, ‘Oh, it's actually nice here. I want to stay here,'” Andrew said. “I don't know. I feel like it's this time around, this time right here, it's part of healing.”
With school approaching, though, Andrew and his family weren’t sure what to do. Kipnuk’s school is closed.
“We want to go back to Fairbanks, but we want to stay here. I want to enroll the kids in Anchorage, where all the friends are, but it's Anchorage, so I don't [know]” Andrew said. “It's a tough decision.”
When the school year started, Andrew’s family decided to stay and homeschool their kids to remain in the village.
Andrew grew up in Kwigillingok, a nearby community also hard-hit by ex-typhoon Halong. He said that growing up, Elders would talk about preparing for future weather events.
“You know, any instructions or any what to, what to expect when the weather change, weather patterns and whatever,” Andrew remembered. “But those Elders, when I was in grade school in the 90s, I remember they would talk about the next flood. They would talk about relocating the village to somewhere higher.”
Andrew said that if Kipnuk were to rebuild several miles up the river, he wouldn’t see it as relocating. It’s land the people already know well and have a relationship with. But in the meantime, he hopes rebuilding the village where it was can bring his family, and the rest of Kipnuk, a sense of freedom, safety, and community again.
