The village of Kivalina woke up to more rain on Tuesday, adding to the heavy rainfall it has had for about three weeks.
The start of the school year has been delayed and one village resident says it may be weeks before students are in class.
Stanley Hawley, a tribal administrator in Kivalina who also grew up in the village, called the flooding the worst he has seen his whole life. He says one of the major concerns is the damage that the flooding has caused to the village's water intake system. The water intake line was destroyed and it cannot pump water in the village's two holding tanks.
"A lot of people are relying on rain water right now just to have their coffee and whatever else they need to cook," says Hawley. "The real big challenge is that not a whole lot of people can gather rain water and they don't have anything to wash their clothes even."
Hawley says the landfill was also flooded, leaving trash and raw sewage flowing into the lagoon.
Hawley says it will likely be a few weeks before classes begin since the village has to work to open the water service line to the school.
"The lack of water and services, people can cope with, but now we have to do with secondary issues like sending our kids out to the nearby villages to school," says Hawley. "That's unacceptable. We're not even going to consider that."
