Aviva Braun is the warning coordination meteorologist for the NWS Anchorage office. Kaitlyn O'Brien is the observing program leader at the Anchorage forecast office.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.
Izzy Ross: Thank you all for joining me today. I'm very excited to hear a little bit more about what you all are doing in Bristol Bay. So go ahead and tell me about the reason for your visit.
Aviva Braun: We are working really hard in our office to start relationships with the communities that we serve and strengthen relationships that we already have. There's a lot of work to do with building those relationships in the Bristol Bay area, so we're starting here in Dillingham, and we'll be working our way out into the smaller villages eventually — not on this trip, unfortunately. We're starting to have this conversation introducing ourselves as a resource to the communities. And this means being a part of preparation phases and response phases. Letting people know the weather before it comes in so they can make the proper plans and prepare themselves as is needed within the community. And then in the response, know what's coming, when, so that they can keep themselves safe as well.
Kaitlyn O'Brien:
Since being in Dillingham on Monday this week, one thing that stands out in my mind, I have heard — and I think we all have heard — how impactful the winter storm was last December. And knowing that that we could provide a heads up about the impactful weather that's coming, especially in the wintertime, could really help the community prepare and understand — Okay, this is coming. We're seeing the messages from the weather service about this storm, and here's what I'm going to do to take action and get things ready so that when the power does go out, you are prepared and you have an idea of of what's coming. So just knowing that that December event was so impactful, that's information that we can take back to our forecasting team and share: Here's how it impacted the community, here's what people did. And here's how we can help in the future.
Braun: The other part of this equation is that we're not here in person, we're not here on the ground experiencing everything. So it's really good to hear from community members what actually is impactful? Like we didn't realize that last December, it was so impactful, having that much snow, and now we know. So we are armed with that knowledge and then can take it back as Caitlin said, and do a better job of giving that heads up.
But there are other weather events that people have mentioned to us that can take down a community, prevent people from living their traditional lives. And if we open the conversation, if we know about it, if people feel comfortable approaching us and saying, 'Hey, this impacts us,' then we can do a far better job of serving this area.
Ross: Right. I do remember that December storm, it was very intense. One of the communities up the up the road, Aleknagik, did lose power for about a week. I know that some people didn't have generators. It was really tough. A lot of entities around town tried to come together to respond to that. But it was it was difficult.
So during your trip, what did those outreach efforts look like? And how can people reach out to you all?
Braun: We are meeting with all the people that we would normally consider what we designate as core partners: Police, Tribal councils, [the Bristol Bay Native Association]. We're meeting with a hospital later today. We're reaching out to everybody who serves as a community leader that looks out for protection of life and property, which is the Weather Service mission. So we are now working to make sure that they know that we're part of their team. And that's the main reason why we're here is — face-to-face makes a huge difference.
If people want to reach out to us, we are available. Feel free to call in and speak to a forecaster and ask questions that you need to ask.
Visit: www.weather.gov/anchorage
Call: 907-266-5105.
I have a favorite story that I would like to share. In one of my previous offices, I had a fellow call in regularly who is a regular duck hunter. And he wanted to know what days are going to be the best for him to go duck hunting and he was looking for certain conditions. So one of my first questions to him when when we first spoke was 'what conditions are you looking for? What are the best conditions for you to have a successful successful hunting trip?' And so he told me those conditions and every time we spoke, I thought, Okay, this is what he's looking for. And then I'm going to tell him, 'Hey, your best window of opportunity is tomorrow from noon to four.' And that was that's something that we can do. And I don't think people know that they can reach out to us. So it's an open line.
Ross: You mentioned reaching out to smaller communities in the Bristol Bay region. Is this a statewide effort and what do those next steps look like?
Braun: The area that we serve as most is mainly southwest Alaska, all the way out to the end of the Aleutian chain, and then down through southcentral Alaska. I would love to say that we weren going to be able to go out to every single community. But as we all know, it's difficult to travel in this state. And so we're trying to go to the hub cities one by one, and eventually we'll go out to as many of the small villages as we can.
I did reach out to a lot of the small villages across Bristol Bay, and I'm slowly starting to hear back from them, one by one. And so I know that we're starting those conversations that are just so important, because everybody cares about climate change, and what they can do to prepare for those new extremes that we're now seeing and prepare properly for it, be it better or stronger telephone poles or a stronger roof. Whatever it is, we can help be part of that conversation. And so we're slowly starting to reach out to everybody [for them to] have equal access to us because we really do care about underserved communities, and we want to make sure that we are not contributing to the underserved feeling.
Ross: So it sounds like this effort is really about making those conversations happen and getting the ball rolling in that way. Are there any concrete actions or like things like that? What is the end goal of these conversations?
Braun: The end goal is that we hear what's important to each community and then can tailor some of what we do to that community. But as we have these conversations, we're getting contact information, we're showing our face, making people feel comfortable and reaching out to us. But then all of those community leaders that we're meeting with, we're then adding them to our contact sheet, and giving them something solid, like a heads-up email ahead of an impactful system. Now that we know what's impactful, not just what we think is impactful, we will send out emails to those community leaders who will then spread the word and then people in that community can then prepare as they see fit.
Ross: Thank you all so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it.
Braun: Thank you for having us.
Get in touch with the author at izzy@kdlg.org or 907-842-2200.
