The other Alaska airlift: Volunteers save dogs from a flooded Alaska
village, 1 tiny plane at a time
[October 18, 2025]
By CEDAR ATTANASIO
SEATTLE (AP) — The special delivery arrived in a plastic storage box
after a chartered flight in bouncy single-propeller plane. Veterinarian
Susan Shaffer Sookram snipped the zip ties securing the lid and greeted
the cargo: four dogs, one with a gray collar bearing its name, Happy.
“What a scary ride!" she said. “You made it!”
As officials in Alaska work around the clock on one of the most
significant airlift operations in state history — evacuating more than
1,000 people from remote, flood-battered villages on the coast of the
Bering Sea — another rescue operation is playing out: getting the dogs
left behind to safety, in hopes of later reuniting them with their
owners.
The pet shelters closest to the devastated villages are in Bethel, a
regional hub around 90 miles (150 kilometers) away by boat or plane.
When Bethel Friends of Canines, a nonprofit that helps rehome animals,
learned that 50 to 100 dogs might be abandoned in one of the villages,
Kipnuk, it scrambled to charter a plane to evacuate them.
“It costs us $3,000 to do this so and we don’t know how many times we’re
gonna have to do it,” organizer Jesslyn Elliott said by phone Wednesday.
“We’ve never had a natural disaster to this, like, magnitude. So this is
all very, very foreign and new to us. So we’re just kind of winging it.”
The first flight arrived in Bethel on Wednesday night, and more happened
Thursday. Dozens of dogs have passed through her kennel since the floods
began. The nonprofit had raised more than $22,000 after pleading on
Facebook for donations.
The flooding, caused by remnants of Typhoon Halong, has damaged homes in
11 small rural communities, with no more than a few hundred residents,
according to FEMA. Many homes cannot be repaired until next summer as
winter temperatures and snow are forecast for this month.
State officials began airlifting people to Anchorage on Wednesday, as
local leaders in Kipnuk and Kwigillingok, near the Bering Sea, asked to
evacuate residents and as shelters in Bethel neared capacity. At least
one resident of Kwigillingok was confirmed dead, and the search for two
others was called off after their how was swept away.
Pets were not allowed on the military evacuation flights. State
officials have said that the evacuation of people is the priority.
Bethel Friends of Canines received dogs throughout the week as people
fleeing their homes arrived by boat and by plane. There are no roads
connecting towns in the area.
Many of the pets owners want them back soon, but need time to prepare
temporary lodgings in cities like Anchorage and Nome, which are more
than 250 miles (400 kilometers) away.
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In this photo provided by Jacqui Lang, a dog is rescued in Kipnuk,
Alaska, Wednesday, Oct. 15, 2025, to be flown to an animal shelter
in Bethel, Alaska, as its owner had evacuated. (Jacqui Lang via AP)
Before the devastating floods, Bethel Friends of Canines typically
held 15 to 20 dogs at any one time. Now as many as 15 dogs have
arrived on a single flight. Elliott expects most of the additional
dogs to stay in Bethel temporarily before being reunited with their
owners or extended family that can foster them.
At least eight dogs had been reunited with owners in Anchorage as of
Thursday morning, she said.
Homes in affected villages are so damaged that they many not be
livable in the winter, emergency management officials said
Wednesday, and forecasters said rain and snow could arrive this
weekend.
With the human population in Kipnuk shrinking each day, the animal
caretakers in Bethel realized they had to act fast, before everyone
who knew the dogs was gone.
“There’s going to be nobody left there,” said Sookram, the
veterinarian, in a phone interview. “We’re having to kind of
accelerate how the animals are going to be leaving places only
accessible by, at first, helicopter and now small planes,”
Some of the last people to stay behind and serve the community are
teachers. Schools in flooded towns have served as emergency shelters
and meeting places through the relief effort.
Back in Kipnuk, the dog with the gray collar, Happy, was found
waiting on its owner’s clothes, refusing to move or eat, by teacher
Jacqui Lang. She said in a text message that the dog has since been
reunited with its family.
She's one of two or three teachers who helped wrangle the pets to be
loaded at the airstrip, according to Lower Kuskokwim School District
Superintendent Andrew ‘Hannibal’ Anderson.
When Bethel Friends of Canines worker Matthew Morgan landed in
Kipnuk on Wednesday, the teachers had fed the dogs, coaxed them into
crates and labeled them with tags listing their owners.
“You’ve got some heroes out in Kipnuk. They’re like the last people
left there,” Morgan said. Without them, "it would have been chasing
dogs all night in the mud.”
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Associated Press writer Jesse Bedayn in Denver contributed.
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