"We have lived here all our lives. We came from the old site here. The village moved here in 1972 or ‘73. It’s three miles down south. We have seen a lot of storms during our life time. The worst one was down at the old village site in 1969 or ‘70? No one used to get scared back then though. There was wood that washed up outside our doorway. I was the mayor at that time. I was 23 years old. We had a landing strip, and we had no type of heavy equipment, nothing at all. And that storm was really bad. We looked at the airport, and the whole airport was covered with logs, big, long, wide logs. I called Al Adams. He worked for the Governors office, and I explained the situation to him. I told him there is no way airplanes can land here. We don’t have a tractor or equipment; we don’t have nothing. He asked me if I have got men there? I said yep, we have men here. He said, 'then you hire every able bodied man you can.' During the flood years, we have no means of escape right now. We could stay floating on a boat for awhile, but we would drift away. Its a tricky situation here. There is no place to run; it’s scary. The reason why we moved three miles up here, is because the water is shallower up here, and the waves break farther out there." — Edgar Jackson and Helen Jackson are Inupiaq and live in Shaktoolik, Alaska.
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