A major fire at the one store in Stebbins, Alaska on Monday has left one third of that western Alaska community without power, and a community without a store or fuel, as winter sets in on isolated St. Michael’s Island on Norton Sound.
The village of Stebbins is eight miles north of the village of St. Michael’s, and 120 miles southeast of Nome. It is a Yup’ik Eskimo village of about 625 people, with a commercial fishing and subsistence way of life. The store is completely destroyed.
There is no fire department in Stebbins, and the fire spread to a nearby fuel company, which also caught fire. There was no one inside the building and no one was injured in the blaze, which is still smoldering at the time of this story’s publication.
The community is converting the laundromat into a temporary store and groceries and other supplies are waiting in Nome and Unalakleet for weather, which is said to be freezing rain, Must Read Alaska learned on Tuesday. A power crew is also standing by in Nome to get into Stebbins to restore the power.
Stebbins was recently hit hard by a September storm that sent up to eight feet of water through the community and left several families displaced. That super-storm hit the coastal communities all the way to Nome. The storm took out all the subsistence fishing gear, fish racks, and other supplies that subsistence Alaskans depend on. Nonprofits and governments have been providing aid to the village to help families who were displaced or whose fishing gear was destroyed.
There is no firewood in the area, because the ecology of the area supports no real trees. Gov. Mike Dunleavy said the Division of Homeland Security’s Emergency Operations Center and non-profit groups are working together to assess and address the situation, and coordinate an ongoing response.
When a plane can get a weather clearance to fly, supplies will be flown to St. Michaels, where they will be trucked to Stebbins.
