All 46 residents of Karluk Manor, an apartment building in Anchorage for people with disabilities, were evacuated after the earthquake. They won’t be able to return home until Wednesday at the earliest because of a broken water main and damages to the building. But the community pulled together to make sure they were safe.

When the earthquake started on Friday morning, Russell Alexie was sitting in his room at Karluk Manor in Fairview.

“It was scary. I got to watch my TV fall, my dishes fall,” he recalled. “All the shaking and rattling. It was scary.”

When it ended, he joined the rest of the residents in the building’s cafeteria. He left his room with just his jacket, shoes, and most of his medications. He normally uses a walker, but he couldn’t get it down the stairs and the elevators weren’t working.

“Then the cafeteria, the dining area, (the ceiling) started leaking really crazy,” he said. “Then everyone was trying to get back in their rooms and get their clothes.”

The power, heat, and water were out, and it was unclear when it would all be restored. Some staff made sandwiches while others made plans.

Corrine O’Neill is the supportive housing division director for RurAL CAP, which runs Karluk Manor. She said that by late afternoon it was clear residents needed a new place to live, but the logistics were difficult.

“All of our people are disabled and a majority of them are seniors with mobility challenges,” she explained.

When other housing options for the large group fell through, they got in touch with St. John United Methodist Church on O’Malley, where Andy Bartel is a pastor, who offered to house people in the church’s gym.

“We weren’t sure exactly how we were going to do this,” he said. “It was almost zero notice, and we were busy cleaning up our own messes in our homes, just like everybody else in Anchorage. But when we heard that there would be people without a roof, without a warm place to sleep, without food, the answer was ‘yes.’”

Within an hour the church community pulled together mattresses and bedding. Sal’s New York Grill and Catering donated meals, and other volunteers hosted BINGO games and provided entertainment.

“If the church doesn’t exist for this,” Pastor Bartel said, “then why do we exist?”

Karluk resident Betty Sanchez Sopcak, who said she prayed like she never had before during the earthquake, was happy to be welcomed at the church.

“And I thank God for this wonderful church that took Karluk Manor in,” she said. “And the people here are just wonderful. God’s blessing them through helping.”

But she said she is also ready to go home, or at least move closer.

After two nights at the church, the group was moved to the Red Cross Shelter at Fairview Recreation Center, not far from Karluk. The shelter housed about 15 people Saturday night, according to their spokesperson Cari Dighton. They expected about 60 people on Sunday, including all of the Karluk Manor residents. The shelter will remain open until it is no longer necessary.

RurAL CAP is seeking donations to fix the water main and other damages, such as broken televisions that provide entertainment to people with major mobility challenges. You can give here.

Video courtesy Northwest Arctic Borough School District

Update (11:52 a.m.) – Ryan Cunningham, KTOO

Mike Dunleavy has been sworn in as the 12th governor of Alaska.

The swearing-in took place at the Kotzebue Middle School — a deviation from the original plan to conduct the swearing-in in Noorvik, 40 miles east of Kotzebue. Festivities continued as planned at the Aqqaluk Noorvik School, with the swearing-in being shown on television to a crowd in the school’s gymnasium. The governor hoped to arrive in Noorvik later in the day.

Update (10:40 a.m.) – David Purdy, KTOO

Gov.-elect Mike Dunleavy has arrived in Kotzebue after his flight was diverted from the original destination of Noorvik due to weather conditions, according to transition team spokeswoman Sarah Erkmann Ward. The plan is for Dunleavy to be sworn in at Kotzebue Middle School, she said.

Update (10:02 a.m.) – David Purdy, KTOO

As of 9:59 a.m., Gov.-elect Mike Dunleavy’s flight was being diverted to Kotzebue due to weather, according to transition team spokeswoman Sarah Erkmann Ward. That means the swearing-in is currently planned to happen in Kotzebue if nothing changes, she said.

Original story – Andrew Kitchenman, KTOO and Alaska Public Media

The swearing-in for Mike Dunleavy as governor and for Kevin Meyer as lieutenant governor is scheduled for just before noon today. Dunleavy is scheduled to fly directly from Anchorage to the Northwest Arctic Borough village of Noorvik for the ceremony. It’s where Dunleavy’s wife Rose grew up.

More people are expected to be at the inauguration than live in Noorvik. That means it took a lot of work to get things ready for the event.

More than half a ton of food was shipped into Noorvik for the occasion, and residents provided caribou and salmon. The event is expected to draw up to 700 people to Noorvik’s school. As many as 200 people are coming from other parts of Northwest Arctic Borough and as many as 50 people are coming from other parts of Alaska, according to organizers.

Mary Carter chopped onions in the school kitchen on Sunday. She first knew Rose Dunleavy as a sweet and intelligent classmate.

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “That the lady of our village is the first lady. And, wow, she’s from Noorvik and she’s my classmate, man. It’s so exciting. I love this. You know, I love every minute of it. To prepare, you know? I’m glad it’s the onions that’s making me cry. I’m so happy.”

Aqqaluk High and Noorvik Elementary School principal Faith Jurs said all of Noorvik is happy to host the event.

“It means the world to us,” she said. “I hope the rest of Alaska doesn’t mind. It’s a wonderful honor and I think it’s cool. It sends a message that rural Alaska is important. And it is.”

She said the event provides a lesson to her students.

“Because Rose is from here and because Mike has spent so much of his career in rural Alaska, I think the message is: ‘You can do it. You can do it, kids from Noorvik. You can do it, rural Alaskan kids. You can be the governor of the state, or the first lady of the state,’ ” she said. “And it’s an important message and I think our kids are hearing it.”

Gov. Bill Walker and Lt. Gov. Valerie Nurr’araaluk Davidson are staying in Anchorage to work on the earthquake recovery until their terms end. After the earthquake, Dunleavy canceled a snowmachine ride that would have brought him from Kotzebue to Noorvik for the ceremony.

Dunleavy will be the third governor to be sworn in outside of Juneau. Sarah Palin and Sean Parnell had their ceremonies in Fairbanks.

Aftershocks from the massive earthquake that struck Anchorage and Southcentral Alaska on Friday morning continued over the weekend, adding stress to the assessment and recovery effort now underway. A lot of that damage was to major transportation corridors. How long will recovery take, especially in winter conditions?

HOST: Lori Townsend

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LIVE Broadcast: Tuesday, December 4, 2018 at 10:00 a.m. on APRN stations statewide.

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Former state lawmaker Bettye Davis has passed away at the age of 80. An Anchorage School Board spokeswoman said this morning a family member informed them Davis had died.

Davis was the first black woman to be elected to the state House of Representatives in Alaska, and she was the first black Alaskan elected to the state Senate. Davis also served three terms on the Anchorage School Board.

Colleagues called Davis the “Conscience of the Legislature” during her tenure. She championed legislation for education, social issues and economic development. Davis was also instrumental in reestablishing the Alaska Commission on the Status of Women, which focused on dealing with issues facing Alaska women and their families.

Davis also served three terms on the Anchorage School Board. The board held a celebration in October to officially commemorate Davis’s life and public service record in Alaska.

There are 132 precincts with an Alaska Native majority, according to 2010 census data. Gov. Mike Dunleavy won in just six of those precincts.

One of those is Noorvik, the hometown of incoming first lady Rose Dunleavy and the original site of Monday’s swearing in ceremony.

Another Alaska Native-majority precinct where Dunleavy won the most votes was Hoonah, a Southeast community with more registered Democrats than Republicans.

So what was Republican Mike Dunleavy’s appeal there?

“A lot of of people’s big concern was on the PFDs,” Hoonah Mayor Gerald Byers said in a phone interview. “You know so many people count on that to supplement their winter fuel supply, their food supply. Because so much in rural Southeast, we don’t have that many year-round jobs so a lot of our people aren’t working come wintertime.”

The city has around 700 residents. Alaska Natives make up the largest demographic.

Dunleavy has promised to restore the Permanent Fund dividend to its pre-2017 level. Gov. Bill Walker slashed the dividend check in half to balance the state’s budget amid declining oil revenues.

This year’s check was $1,600 — Dunleavy says he’d write bigger checks under the old formula. It’s unclear how the state would afford this.

But Dunleavy has promised to aggressively cut state spending, and Byers said he personally supported Dunleavy because he’s unhappy with the status quo.

“He is open to some kind of changes. And that’s a big thing, is people weren’t seeing changes or actions to protect their interest,” Byers said.

Dunleavy didn’t win in Hoonah by much: He received 50.3 percent of the vote, winning 23 more votes than Democrat Mark Begich, who received 43 percent.

The other Alaska Native-majority precincts that went for Dunleavy were Koyuk, Kivalina, Kiana and South Kodiak Island.

The state’s interactive map showing results can be viewed here.

Businesses around Anchorage were shaken hard by Friday’s earthquake. After a weekend of cleanup, many businesses are re-opening. But not everyone has the all-clear yet.

By Saturday, while many Downtown Anchorage businesses had opened, some remained closed. Signs in doorways indicated their owners were cleaning up.

The whole Fifth Avenue Mall was closed until early afternoon Saturday.

At 2 p.m., some mall stores opened, letting in a crowd of customers who had been waiting on the sky bridge outside its doors.

The mall’s management declined to comment for this story. Management also did not want Alaska Public Media to talk to its retailers.

At Chilkoot Charlie’s, a bar in the city’s Spenard neighborhood, bartender JJ Doherty was back to business as usual. Friday morning, she arrived at work to find broken bottles all over the floor behind the bar. The cleanup required extra people and tools.

“Shovels, lots of shovels,” Doherty said. “When I first saw it I was like — you know I’ve cleaned up messes of bottles here and there but — I saw a pile of it and I was like I don’t even know where to begin.”

Doherty says bar staff and friends came together and got the mess cleaned up within a couple hours.

“And we also had friends who came in and helped me,” Doherty said. “I had called my friends, I was pretty shaken up. They were calling me like ‘we got the day off, we’re going home! And I was like, ‘well then you get over and help me clean up.'”

Chilkoot Charlie’s stayed open throughout the cleanup, and Doherty says by the evening, there was a full bar of customers.

She says bar management is still assessing the impact of the lost bottles, but she doesn’t expect it to be huge blow financially.

Around the city, businesses that had closed for cleanup are beginning to re-open.

R.E.I. was open Saturday. So was Title Wave Books. The bookstore had to pick up a lot of books that had fallen off the shelves. They’re currently having and earthquake warehouse sale.

The movie theater at the Beartooth Theatre Pub is closed through at least Monday. General Manager Stephanie Johnson says they are unsure exactly when the movie theater will be back up and running. The business is making sure the room is structurally safe, and that the technical equipment needed to show movies is running properly. The restaurant is open as usual.

Barnes and Noble re-opened Monday after being closed through the weekend for clean-up.

The full extent of earthquake damage, and what it will cost to fix it, is still being assessed throughout Southcentral Alaska.

The Mat-Su School District says Houston Middle school will likely be closed for the rest of the year because of extensive damage from Friday’s earthquake. Most schools in the district will be able to resume classes by Thursday, December 6.

Mat-Su School Superintendent Monica Goyette says there is a tentative plan in place for the students who won’t have a school.

“Our best plan right now is to try and relocate portables and allow them to integrate in Houston High School so we can keep the school communities together,” Goyette said.

Goyette says seven schools reopened today and more schools should reopen by Thursday. But she says for five schools, including Houston High School, it’s unknown when they will be able to resume classes.

Information on the status of individual Mat-Su Schools is available here.

Most city services are getting back to normal in Anchorage after Friday’s major earthquake. Utilities like electricity, water, and trash collection are back to pre-quake status.

Anchorage schools are not.

With schools closed for the entire week in Anchorage, many families are looking for childcare so they can get back to work.

thread, an organization focused on child care and early education, is working with state and municipal childcare licensing agencies to compile a list of options for families. thread CEO Stephanie Berglund said childcare openings in the area are always limited, but the earthquake has made the situation worse.

“Some (childcare facilities) who are open may not be able to even serve their regular families because of some of their staff not being able to report to work,” Berglund said.

You can find a list of available resources at threadalaska.org. Berglund said they will not be listing operations at unlicensed facilities. The Anchorage Daily News has also compiled a list with options.

Berglund said people should talk to their employers about possibilities or alternatives to their regular work schedule.

“We’re encouraging them to review them their personnel policies for taking time off,” Berglund said. “We’re also encouraging people to talk with their employers about their childcare needs. Maybe they have some flexible options for working from home, or possibly bringing their children into work, or flexing their time. Or possibly making some time up later.”

Berglund said they are also encouraging employers to be as flexible as possible during this emergency.

Some camps, like Trailside Discovery Camp, had the staff to run a program but struggled for days to find a location. Trailside Discovery director Victoria Long-Leather said their camp is usually at Campbell Creek Science Center but that building is still undergoing a structural assessment. On Tuesday evening they secured space at the Egan Center. They will offer a free camp with winter ecology lessons from 7 am until 7 pm, Wednesday through Friday.

In addition to childcare, other families are affected by the lack of access to school lunches. Children’s Lunchbox will be offering food at the Parachutes Teen Center and the Boys & Girls Clubs in Mountain View and Woodland Park.

The Anchorage School District will be offering meals for anyone 18 and younger Tuesday through Friday from 11am-3pm at the following sites:

• Alaska Native Cultural Charter School
• Central Middle School
• Creekside Park Elementary School
• Fairview Elementary School
• Mountain View Elementary School
• Muldoon Elementary School
• North Star Elementary School
• Nunaka Valley Elementary School
• Williwaw Elementary School

Food pantries around the area are also up and running. You can find a list here.

Road problems also remain an issue. On Monday afternoon, City Manager Bill Falsey said that even though forecasted snow failed to materialize, rain and ice have made for terrible driving conditions on top of already quake-damaged streets.

“We think the significant challenge is going to mopping up some of our road work,” Falsey said.

However, there is promising news about the Glenn Highway. Road crews are on track to repair damaged lanes by Tuesday’s morning commute, potentially restoring the highway to two lanes in both directions. That will make a big difference for residents north of Anchorage, although some speed reductions and modified traffic flows around bridge areas will remain.

While some city employees were told to stay home if they could on Monday, the municipality is on track to be open as usual for the remainder of the week.

“We look like we’re going to have a pretty normal Tuesday,” Falsey said. “We’re going to put people on a regular schedule, have municipal business back open as normal. If folks have extraordinary needs we’re going to have them take leave, we’ll be granting leave liberally. But otherwise we’re asking all folks to report to work, and we’ll be up and ready for business.”

On Tuesday night, the administration may ask the Assembly to extend the mayor’s declaration of a civil emergency. According to Falsey, the move would be primarily to help expedite the procurement process as the city continues recovery efforts.

You probably don’t have earthquake insurance. Fewer than 20 percent of Alaska homeowners do, according to state estimates. But if your property was damaged, you may still have options to get compensation.

Homeowners’ insurance doesn’t usually cover earthquake damage, but standard policies often extend to events that immediately follow an earthquake, like if a water pipe broke and flooded your home. Division of Insurance Director Lori Wing-Heier said homeowners should make a report to their insurance companies and see what they say.

“The broken pipe itself would not be covered because that was part of the quake,” Wing-Heier said. “But perhaps the water damage from the pipe will be covered.”

Wing-Heier also suggests checking on rental properties and storage units. And, she said, don’t forget about your car insurance.

“If you have your auto parked in the garage,” she said, “and your auto is … damaged, because a bookshelf or whatever fell over on it. Well, that auto policy might respond.”

For uninsured losses, the state may be able to help you. The governor’s disaster declaration frees up money for Individual Assistance Grants, for people whose homes, property or cars were damaged in the quake. You can apply at ready.Alaska.gov.

The state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management is also standing up a hotline to assist grant applicants, starting Tuesday, Dec. 4. That number is 1-855-445-7131. The Division advises taking pictures before you clean up and saving receipts from earthquake-related expenses.

The deadline to apply for Individual Assistance Grants is Jan. 29.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @AKPublicNews

Dunleavy sworn in as governor in Kotzebue

Andrew Kitchenman and Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media

Governor Mike Dunleavy was sworn-in today in Kotzebue, the first Alaska governor to hold his inauguration north of the arctic circle.

PFD promise key to Dunleavy’s win in Hoonah

Jacob Resneck, CoastAlaska – Juneau

Mike Dunleavy won an electoral majority in 6 of 132 precincts with an Alaska Native majority. One was Hoonah, where the Republican’s promise of full Permanent Fund dividends apparently resonated with voters.

Dunleavy names new Alaska Fish and Game chief

Jacob Resneck, CoastAlaska – Juneau

Doug Vincent-Lang will be acting commissioner for Alaska Department of Fish and Game. The former fisheries biologist was director for the Division of Wildlife Conservation under Gov. Sean Parnell.

No earthquake policy? Your loss may still be insured

Liz Ruskin, Washington D.C.

You probably don’t have earthquake insurance. Fewer than 20 percent of Alaska homeowners do. But if your property was damaged, you may still have options to get compensation.

Houston Middle School likely closed for remainder of school year following quake

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Most schools in the Mat-Su School District will be able to resume classes by Thursday, December 6.

Anchorage classes cancelled through the week as clean-up continues

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

The tentative first day back for students is Monday, Dec. 10.

Focus shifts to childcare needs in wake of earthquake

Anne Hillman and Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Childcare options in Anchorage are limited for families facing a week with no school.

Karluk Manor evacuated, turns to church for shelter

Anne Hillman, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

When the earthquake struck, the 46 residents of Karluk Manor had nowhere safe to go until a church quickly opened their doors.

Bettye Davis, trailblazing lawmaker and education activist, passes at the age of 80

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Former state lawmaker Bettye Davis has passed away at the age of 80.

Alaska railroad on the way to recovery following severe earthquake damage

Elizabeth Harball, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

According to an Alaska Railroad spokesperson, thanks to the speed of repairs, trains are likely to start running again by early this week.

After the earthquake, Anchorage air traffic control briefly relocated to a pickup truck

Nathaniel Herz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

A handful of air traffic controllers rode out Friday’s earthquake from their 12th-story platform above Ted Stevens International Airport in Anchorage. In a dramatic moment, they had to abort an imminent landing by a FedEx jet until the runway could be inspected for cracks.

The 12-story air traffic control tower at Anchorage’s main airport is normally one of the best offices in town, with sweeping views of Cook Inlet, Denali and the Chugach Mountains.

On Friday morning, though, Anchorage’s 7.0 earthquake reminded controllers that their workplace rests atop a “150-foot toothpick,” said Clint Blaszak, a supervisor in the tower.

After evacuating, the controllers, who work for the Federal Aviation Administration, first headed for their backup location, the airport fire station.

But that building was closed to them, too, because of possible damage. So Blaszak and two colleagues went with Plan C: guiding in planes at the nation’s fifth-busiest cargo hub from the cab of a pickup truck, at one end of the north-south runway.

Their improvised response, with help from some quick-moving runway inspectors, meant that the airport’s three runways were closed for less than 10 minutes, officials said.“Most of our equipment is windows. We had a window in the truck,” Blaszak said in an interview atop the tower Saturday. “Everybody had a radio. Everybody had a phone.”

Alaska Airlines diverted just two planes – one to Fairbanks and one that returned to Portland – and canceled just four flights that day, Marilyn Romano, the company’s regional vice president, said in an email.

Damage to the airport’s terminal did disrupt passenger traffic somewhat, and Romano said that Alaska Airlines had to pause its operations for a safety check.

But cargo traffic continued moving largely unabated, according to airport officials. And the earthquake could have caused a much bigger logistical mess if the controllers were knocked offline for long, said Sherri LaRue, associate professor of aviation technology at University of Alaska Anchorage.

“It’s an extraordinary situation. I give them a lot of credit,” LaRue said.

In Anchorage’s huge 1964 earthquake, the airport tower actually collapsed and one person died.

This time, Blaszak, 38, said the building swayed three or four feet, and he described watching transformers blow out around town during the pre-dawn earthquake. A coffee pot was knocked from its perch, and even Saturday morning, the platform was still missing some ceiling tiles.

In a break room one floor down, Patrick Beargie said he put a pillow over his head as locker tipped over, a fire extinguisher ripped out of the wall and a refrigerator rolled halfway across the room.

“It was just stuff, everywhere. The contents of everything just thrown all over the floor,” he said.

Immediately afterward, the tower controllers aborted an imminent landing by a FedEx jet. Their dramatic radio transmissions – “FedEx, go around, FedEx, go around!” – were captured in an audio recording subsequently replayed on news broadcasts.

Once the magnitude of the earthquake became clear, the controllers all evacuated. Blaszak headed down the spiral staircase from the observation deck carrying a pair of radios.The airport’s three runways needed to be inspected for cracks before they could reopen, which airport manager Jim Szczesniak said took about eight minutes.

Inside the truck, he said, the three controllers split up their duties. One worked the runways and taxiing, a second worked with another group of controllers that handle planes farther from the airport and a third coordinated.

Blaszak stressed that they relied on dozens of FAA employees at other locations.

Working from a truck isn’t completely unprecedented – controllers sometimes operate from trucks or tents or trailers during emergencies, or in the military. The Seattle airport built a temporary tower out of shipping containers after a 2001 earthquake destroyed the previous version.

The job demands a certain amount of improvisation, according to LaRue, the Anchorage aviation professor.

“Obviously, there are rules and you’re supposed to follow them, so you’d never say you’re supposed to be super creative,” she said. “But not everything is covered by a rule.”

If the controllers hadn’t been able to set up from the truck, experts said it probably wouldn’t have been an immediate safety risk to planes and passengers.

Without controllers, pilots can – and did – use a system called common traffic advisory frequency, or CTAF, that calls for them to announce their own positions and movements. But that’s far less efficient than instructions from the airport tower – LaRue compared it to relying on a four-way stop sign instead of a stop light.

Szczesniak, the airport manager, credited the quick-thinking controllers and speedy runway inspectors with keeping things moving.

“If I looked out the windows, it was like nothing happened as far as air traffic was concerned,” he said. “They were continuing to land and depart and land and depart, just like they would normally.”

In the aftermath of the earthquake, Blaszak said the controllers are reassessing their backup plans, given that their original Plan B – the fire station – turned out to be inaccessible.

As Gov. Mike Dunleavy was sworn into office Monday, the transition of power was also taking place online.

The Alaska Office of Information Technology is going through the process of updating the state website and editing pages with the former governor’s name.

That means websites you could access last week may not be available now. For example, the page with the state’s new climate change policy is offline.

Jeff Turner, Dunleavy’s deputy communication director, said he doesn’t know if the site will be restored. The administration is still discussing if the page will go back up.

Gov. Bill Walker appointed a climate change task force in December of last year to draft the policy, which they completed in August and formally submitted in September. But team members said that wasn’t the end of the process. Now, the state must figure out how to implement the strategies in the document.

During his campaign, Dunleavy told KTOO that the state has more important issues to deal with than those involving the climate task force.

There’s a new person in charge of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game.

The governor has tapped Doug Vincent-Lang to be the acting head of Fish and Game. The announcement came Monday afternoon just hours after Mike Dunleavy was sworn in.

Vincent-Lang is a former state fisheries biologist who rose to be the state’s environmental species coordinator during the Parnell administration. More recently he served as director for the Division of Wildlife Conservation. In that job, he urged the federal government to remove both the Steller sea lion and humpback whale from the endangered species list.

He replaces Sam Cotten, a former state House speaker, who was appointed by Gov. Bill Walker in 2014.

The agency’s deputy commissioner and several division directors were also dismissed Monday by the new administration. Successors haven’t been named.

As recently as last year, Vincent-Lang was a director on the Resource Development Council.

Vincent-Lang will service as acting commissioner. The Board of Fisheries and Board of Game will nominate candidates for a permanent appointment during its joint meeting in March.

The Legislature must ratify commissioner-level appointments.

Planning for events in rural Alaska always carries the caveat “weather permitting.” That was the case Monday, as new Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy’s swearing-in ceremony didn’t go according to plan. Fog prevented Dunleavy’s plane from landing in Noorvik in time for his swearing-in ceremony. So he was sworn in where his plane did land: Kotzebue.

But that didn’t stop the community of Noorvik from going ahead with its plan and holding its own event, blending songs, speeches and prayers in English and Inupiaq. The event was held at Noorvik’s school, and the fourth and fifth-graders participated, singing “My Country ‘Tis of Thee” in Inupiaq.

Dunleavy and Lt. Gov. Kevin Meyer took their oaths of office more than 20 minutes before the noon deadline set in the state constitution.

After the fog cleared, Dunleavy, Meyer and other visitors were able to fly the roughly 20 minutes to Noorvik for an inaugural feast. He arrived in time for the feast that residents planned.

Dunleavy chose Noorvik for the event because his wife Rose Dunleavy grew up there. The family received a warm welcome. Mike and Rose Dunleavy now live in Wasilla, although they’re moving to the governor’s mansion in Juneau this week.

The governor welcomed Noorvik residents to the capital.

“And you know how it goes in the village,” he said. “If you come to Juneau, and you need a place to stay, they tell us we have a big house, OK? With lots of bedrooms and lots of mattresses.”

Rose Dunleavy was the focus of much of Noorvik’s pride in the day leading up to the event. She is known by her Inupiaq name, Sattu, in Noorvik. Alaska’s new first lady said she likes to return to her home village.

“Oh, it feels good,” she said. “It feels really good — just, it came back,” referring to the feeling of being home.

The Dunleavy family and other members of the new governor’s team flew back after spending a little more than two hours in Noorvik.

KNOM’s Katie Kazmierski and KTOO’s Jeremy Hsieh contributed to this report. 

The Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta has a housing crisis. Three-thousand new homes are needed, but fewer than 30 houses are built in the region each year, according to a statewide housing assessment. Meanwhile, nearly half of the region’s existing homes are overcrowded, and the population is growing. One regional fisheries organization is hoping to close the gap with a tiny project that could make a big difference.

Coastal Villages Region Fund is the offshore fisheries community development quota holder for 20 Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta communities. CVRF surveyed its communities earlier this year, asking people what their biggest challenges are. Nearly a third of the respondents said “housing.”

A few months later, in November, CVRF released a video of local workers constructing a tiny home in Eek. As the camera pans across the community’s older homes, community leaders explain the housing situation in the village. “The old houses, they’re drafty, they’re moldy,” says Carlie Beebe, CVRF Board Member. “We have multiple families living in one home,” adds Stella Alexie, Native Village of Eek Tribal Administrator.

CVRF is testing a pilot project to see if a tiny home could help solve these issues. Tiny homes are a growing movement across the nation. Owners buy in for different reasons: to embrace minimalism, to reduce their carbon footprint, to build a cool project, or affordability, which is often the driving factor. But CVRF wasn’t trying to join a movement. It’s trying to start a movement of its own, starting with a 320-foot home.

“It’s a single level; there’s two private rooms with doors. One is a bathroom and one is a bedroom, and the common area would be the living room and kitchen,” said Bob Marquez, CVRF Products and Services Manager.

According to CVRF’s research, a federally funded home usually costs the homeowner $200 per month. CVRF wanted to see what kind of mortgage that money could buy if individual homebuyers could also qualify for federal funds and CVRF grants.

“We were really just trying to show that mortgages were possible,” Marquez said.

Mortgages are rare in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta. Home building is expensive and unemployment is high. Federal dollars funneled through the regional housing authority pay for the majority of homebuilding. Around 27 homes are built in the region per year, according to a statewide housing assessment from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation. That’s not enough to meet the region’s current need of 3,000 new homes.

“At $200 a month, we worked backwards and figured that we had to build something with the overall cost of about $75,000,” said Marquez. “And that turned out to be this 320-square-foot tiny house.”

Theo Brown lives in Eek and led the housing construction. “As soon as construction started,” he said, “we had people asking how they could apply for this house and who was selling it.”

The house is built with thick foam insulation and is highly energy efficient. “When we were constructing the inside we were using 500-watt work lights, and those basically heat up that house,” Brown said.

The home is tiny by anybody’s standards, but it is designed to be expanded if needed. “So, keeping utilities off the wall. Keeping in mind where its situated on the property, making sure the property is lendable, so that a bank will loan you money to do a second if you want to add on,” Marquez explained.

The Native Village of Eek has selected a homebuyer, and CVRF has had four plots surveyed in the village for more tiny homes to be built. The organization is not entering the homebuilding business with this project. Instead, it’s trying to provide a new model for coastal communities where housing is no tiny issue.

The Anchorage School District says Eagle River Elementary school will be closed for the remainder of the school year. The building sustained severe structural damage from Friday’s earthquake.

On Friday at 8:29 a.m., when Anchorage was hit with a magnitude 7.0 earthquake, Eagle River Elementary School principal Lisa Prince says there weren’t a lot of students inside.

“We had our choir students here practicing and we had a before-school program,” Prince said.

Immediately following the earthquake, the students evacuated the building. None were injured.

Since Friday, every school in the district has been under repair and inspection and is being tagged red, yellow or green: red being the most unsafe and green being safe for staff reentry.

As of today, Eagle River Elementary School was the only school that was tagged red. While a lot of debris has been cleaned up, there’s structural damage to one of the school’s exterior walls.

School officials gave a guided tour through the school to show the damage to U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan and local officials.

Tom Fenoseff is the senior director for capitol planning and construction for the Anchorage School District.

“So when you’re outside at the main entrance, you look up, you’re gonna see the deflection in the wall,” Fenoseff said. “The bending and the bowing and the cracking out. That translates into the inside and it affects the multipurpose room and the gymnasium.”

That damage is the primary reason for the closure. ASD Superintendent Deena Bishop said there is a plan for relocating students to two different Eagle River locations.

“They will be reassigned to two other elementary schools in the Eagle River area, Chugiak area as well. Birchwood Elementary as well as Homestead [Elementary,]” Bishop said.

Teachers will relocate with their students to the new schools. Bishop says non-teaching staff will be reallocated as Birchwood and Homestead increase in student population. A new assistant principal may be hired to assist Prince.

“We’re not losing any people, in fact we’re probably gonna need more people to help because the school’s being split into two,” Bishop said.

Bishop says that about a third of the schools in the district are tagged green and the plan is to get those cleaned out this week, making them student-ready.

“If you have a green school, you’re gonna get in there and clean. If you have a yellow, you’re going to a green school to help clean,” Bishop said. “We are literally using every employee, whether they’re certified or para-professionals, to come in if they wanna work and assist us in the preparation and the cleanup.”

Bishop says Gruening Middle School is currently the only school that has not been fully evaluated. She says the district will be working through the weekend to get all of the yellow-tagged schools into the green category so classes can resume December 10.

When Alaska Congressman Don Young thinks of the 41st president of the United States, he remembers a nice guy who could be fierce with a racquet.

Bush played baseball at Yale but that wasn’t his only ballgame. Young said the president would regularly come to Capitol Hill to play racquetball with him and other House members. He said Bush had a mean corner shot that he called “nearly impossible to return.”

“He did that to me three times in a row,” Young recalled this week, as the former president lay in state in the U.S. Capitol. “And I turned around and very hottedly looked at him and said ‘I’m thinking of a word that starts with a P and it’s not president.’ And his Secret Service people went YAIAIAI. Of course, he got a big kick out of it.”

Young says Bush had a nickname for him: Moose.

“Everybody’s (said to be) really a nice guy after they die,” Young said. “But he was a nice guy when he was alive.”

Bush famously called for a “kinder, gentler” nation. He had a hard time boasting of his accomplishments, and he was married to the same woman for 73 years. Some commentators find it impossible not to contrast Bush to the current president. Young, though, waved off an invitation to compare them.

“Each one of them has their style,” he said.

Bush’s casket will be taken across Washington Wednesday for a funeral at National Cathedral.

The Iditarod Trail Committee released a statement Tuesday clearing four-time champion Dallas Seavey of any wrong-doing in a doping incident that happened more than a year-and-a-half ago.

The race’s board of directors says it does not believe Seavey had any “involvement with, or knowledge of, the events that led to the positive (drug) test in his team.” They also apologized for negative publicity the incident caused him.

In 2017, after arriving in Nome, several of Seavey’s sled-dogs tested positive for the banned pain medication Tramadol. Seavey has maintained that he never gave the drug to any of his dogs, and has vocally criticized how the investigation was handled by ITC and its past board members.

In this latest statement, Seavey struck a conciliatory note, saying he was grateful for the resolution under the new board, and the steps that race officials have taken to increase safety along the trail. But Seavey stopped short of saying whether or not he’ll be signing up to race this upcoming Iditarod in March.

Reached by phone Tuesday afternoon, Seavey said he’s considering his options, but the decision does not have anything to do with the race’s management. At this point, he has not signed up for any races.

The 2019 Iditarod starts March 2nd in Anchorage.

Stories are posted on the APRN news page. You can subscribe to APRN’s newsfeeds via email, podcast and RSS. Follow us on Facebook at alaskapublic.org and on Twitter @AKPublicNews

Eagle River Elementary, damaged by quake, will remain closed through school year

Wesley Early, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

The Anchorage School District announced that after taking severe damage from Friday’s earthquake, Eagle River Elementary School will be offline for the remainder of the school year.

Mat-Su residents pick up the pieces after Friday’s quake

Casey Grove, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

The epicenter of Friday’s Magnitude 7 earthquake was on Point MacKenzie, in the Matanuska-Sustina Borough. And just like in Anchorage, residents of the Mat-Su are still picking up the pieces.

How changing oil prices are affecting the state’s expected revenue

Rashah McChesney, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Juneau

Each year, analysts at the state’s Department of Revenue put out a fall revenue sources book that is — essentially — a snapshot of the state’s financial health. It has current and historical income information. It also has predictions for the price of oil for the next few years. This year, the report has been delayed — because the state’s oil price forecast is probably wrong.

Enstar still evaluating gas lines following earthquake

Aaron Bolton, KBBI – Homer

The natural gas utility serving the Kenai Peninsula, Anchorage and the Mat-Su Valley is still looking for leaks and assessing the damage to thousands of miles of gas lines following Friday’s earthquake.

Alaska DOT is in crisis response mode — and it just got a new boss

Nathaniel Herz, Alaska’s Energy Desk – Anchorage

Here’s a look inside the Alaska Department of Transportation as it changed hands in the midst of its earthquake response.

Don ‘Moose’ Young says farewell to Bush

Liz Ruskin, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

When Alaska Congressman Don Young thinks of the 41st president, he remembers a nice guy who could be fierce with a racquet.

Iditarod clears Dallas Seavey in 2017 doping controversy

Zachariah Hughes, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

The Iditarod Trail Committee released a statement Tuesday clearing four-time champion Dallas Seavey of any wrong-doing in a doping incident

State begins process of giving land back to Gulkana

Tripp Crouse, KNBA – Anchorage

The state of Alaska has begun the process of giving about 13 acres of land the state developed without permission back to the village of Gulkana.

Consumer confidence is positive in Alaska this year

Abbey Collins, Alaska Public Media – Anchorage

Consumer confidence attempt to provide insight into this part of the economy. And, in Alaska right now, they’re showing positive signs.

Y-K Delta boarding school discovers cheating on math program

Christine Trudeau, KYUK – Bethel

Students enrolled at the Kuskokwim Learning Academy, a Bethel-area alternative boarding school, were found to be cheating on their computer-based math curriculum. The problem was discovered after many students were tested in the fall and found to be below the pre-algebra level.

Something you probably wouldn’t do in a corporate setting: replace a big business’s chief executive when it’s in the middle of a crisis response.

But that’s pretty much what happened Monday at the Alaska Department of Transportation, which has 3,000 workers.

As Gov. Mike Dunleavy was sworn in, his new transportation commissioner, John MacKinnon, started his first day on the job, while the outgoing commissioner, Marc Luiken, packed up.

It was three days after a 7.0 earthquake hit Anchorage, causing major damage to roads and other infrastructure that DOT is still trying to fix.

On Monday at 7:30 a.m. sharp, DOT was having its pre-dawn incident command briefing in a conference room at its Anchorage headquarters, by the airport. The place was still kind of a mess — there was plaster on the floor that had fallen during the earthquake, piles of candy and a tray of stale tortilla chips.

As people went around a huge table introducing themselves, they got to Luiken, who identified himself as the “chief observer.”

“You’re still commissioner for a while,” MacKinnon quipped.

Luiken was joking — he was still, in fact, the transportation commissioner. But only for a few more hours, because of Dunleavy’s impending swearing-in 500 miles away, in the Northwest Alaska hub town of Kotzebue.

Monday was transition day — when Bill Walker, the governor for the past four years, was replaced by Dunleavy, a Republican.

Dunleavy spent the last year on the campaign trail often criticizing Walker and his policies.

So you might think the transportation department would be set up for some major changes as soon as Dunleavy takes office. But that’s not how MacKinnon sees it.

“It’s like a birthday. You’re not going to feel a year older. I don’t think it’s going to feel any different – it’s just moving into it, and Marc is moving out of it,” he said. “Frankly, you’ve got an incredible department that is taking care of the business. And very important business right now, getting things back on.”

At some of the other departments — there are 14 in all — major policy shifts are likely.

One example: Walker’s revenue commissioners pushed for taxes, while Dunleavy ran on an anti-tax platform. Dunleavy has also asked for resignation letters from an unusually large group of state workers.

But on the spectrum of executive branch agencies, DOT isn’t exactly the most political, and it’s unlikely that more than a handful of political appointees will be removed, according to MacKinnon.

He also convinced the Anchorage office chief, Dave Kemp, to postpone retirement and stay on for the first part of Dunleavy’s term.

And MacKinnon, 66, is more of an old hand than new blood — he was once deputy transportation commissioner, then ran a construction industry trade group that worked with the transportation department. He comes from a longtime Juneau family that moved there in the 1880s.

“You would expect at the political level, in a campaign, there would be some differences of opinion. I think at the department level, though, you don’t take it apart like this and crank the rudder over hard,” MacKinnon said. “This department has a very important role in the economy of the state and public safety, and I think that role needs to be maintained and supported.”

While Dunleavy’s campaign focused on budget cuts, MacKinnon said one thing he’ll be looking at closely is whether transportation spending has already been cut too far.

“Have we cut too much? You know, that depends on who you ask,” he said. “But when the roads aren’t safe for school buses for the public to travel, we may have cut too much.”

He added: “I wouldn’t want my grandkids going out on a school bus on roads that weren’t maintained well.”

Meanwhile, in an office next door, Luiken, the outgoing commissioner, was taking care of a last few loose ends.

Leading up to the transition, Luiken said, he was keeping MacKinnon in the loop through emails and text messages. And, he said, he doesn’t think a department led by MacKinnon would have done much different in the earthquake’s wake.

“I think if the transition had happened Thursday afternoon that you would see probably almost identical responses,” he said. “I had my chance to do my part and I did. And after noon today it’s going to be Commissioner MacKinnon’s chance to do his part.”

Luiken talked with MacKinnon before the big Monday morning meeting. He said he told the incoming commissioner that he hopes to see certain Walker administration initiatives continue – particularly when it comes to the direction of the state ferry system and the Anchorage airport.

“I won’t say he’s fully on board. I’m not sure exactly where they’re going with the marine highway. But we see pretty close to eye-to-eye on what needs to be done to make it successful,” he said. “It may be a slightly different direction than what the Walker administration would have done. But I think the bottom line is that certainly in this department, we have Alaskans best interest in mind when we make decisions.”

Luiken said he has a job lined up, though he won’t say what it is yet.

He said his first task after leaving work midday Monday was taking his wife to lunch.