Northwest History. Alaska. Floods & Flood Control.

• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1932
• Subjects: Alaska; flood; Fairbanks; igloos; Kuskokwim district; Eskimo; Clark M. Garber; the Indian Affairs Bureau; food supplies; devastation; Hamilton; Nome; native villages; Northwest; Pacific > History > 20th century; Indian; Pacific; eskimo*; Kuskokwim
• Online Access: http://content.libraries.wsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/clipping/id/91430

Toll Unknown In Alaska Flood. TOLL UNKNOWN IN ALASKA FLOOD. FAIRBANKS, Alaska, Feb. 18.— (/P)—Tales, of swift-moving tidal waves, which destroyed igloos, cabins and fish caches in the Kuskokwim district last December and brought destruction and devastation to 2,500 Eskimos, left undecided today whether drownings had occurred. The latest report of the great tides, which struck in the night, was . made by Clark M. Garber, superintendent of the Kuskokwim division of the Indian Affairs Bureau. He | said the tides had swept from three to 10 miles inland. Although declaring that natives had been trapped in their igloos, by water four to five feet deep, and could only escape through the top of the shelters, he did not give accounts of deaths. Great quantities of food supplies and the natives' hunting equipment were destroyed, he said. Last Saturday, however, the first word of the devastation, which was carried overland from the very inaccessible district to Hamilton and written by a school teacher in a lette to a friend in Nome, said that seven native villages had been wiped out. Many lives were lost, her letter said, and the bodies of numerous victims were found encased in sheaths of ice.