Climate Changes Shishmaref
They are basically re-putting the rock down that was washed away. It’s kind of dumb because FEMA came in and that rock wall got washed away; and then FEMA said, you know we can cover the spots that weren’t covered, but everything else, we can’t do anything about. So the places where there weren’t rocks, everything else got washed away in the next storm. The piece of shore between guy and truck got washed away.
That’s a rock wall that washed away. The picture I took before, the one I took with the crane, with the backhoe, that is what was laying this rock down. They redid the wall. When they put the rock down to protect the road; right on the other side, it got washed out. It’s a band aid, basically – because you can already see the rock wall, where the rocks are already starting to sink into the ground.
This is a winter snow storm. All the water that’s there on the ocean, it is supposed to be frozen, but it’s not and you have a big storm coming. This is beautiful, but it is also dangerous. This was in October – right at the beginning of the storm season; if the ocean is frozen, then the waves can’t cut into the permafrost and cause erosion and flooding. If the water is not frozen, then it is dangerous.
This is a road that got totally washed out. The water breaks through. This happened not even during a big storm; but it destroyed a lot of infrastructure.
This is a road that got totally washed out. The water breaks through. This happened not even during a big storm; but it destroyed a lot of infrastructure.
This is a road that got totally washed out. The water breaks through. This happened not even during a big storm; but it destroyed a lot of infrastructure.
This is the spot that totally got washed out. That’s the dump road & it just got washed away. That’s a lot of destruction. So it’s like right into a little valley, like a sink, and there goes your $250,000/$300,000 road. That’s storm wasn’t even bad and it just washed it away. That was the scary thing. It wasn’t just 10 feet waves coming crashing in. It was constant wave action just washing it away – like you do a washer, how it just agitates the ground beneath it. It was frozen ground and it
This picture is just about the destruction of the ocean. Racks are poles that you put into the ground and a pole that goes horizontally where you dry your ugruk meat. Or your fish. You can see how much of that land got undercut and it just washed out the bottom and dropped the sod. There’s no seawall to protect the racks and when the storm came, it just took out part of this area.
That one sucks. The past is coming to haunt you. Because that trash is from the 70s and 80s, maybe even farther back than that. But you just see how much sod just grew over the top; and you don’t know what’s underneath there. This is the old dump site that’s now eroding and washing into the ocean. You just never know what’s underneath your feet.