In the wake of ex-Typhoon Halong, Western Alaska residents sought refuge in Anchorage, Alaska's most populous city. Anchorage officials scrambled to hold emergency meetings and devise new agreements to find the resources to help.

"That required more attention to those administrative requirements in order to protect the community instead of putting those resources into supporting the evacuees in their time of need," said Amanda Loach, director of Anchorage's Emergency Operations Center.

To accommodate the hundreds of displaced families from Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta villages last year, the municipality and its partners opened shelters at the downtown Egan Center and the Alaska Airlines Center at the University of Alaska Anchorage and helped coordinate other resources like transportation, medical care and long-term housing.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance declared a civil emergency in October 2025 in conjunction with an emergency declaration from Gov. Mike Dunleavy. The action required Anchorage Assembly approval and allowed the city to reallocate resources and deploy staff as necessary to support disaster relief efforts.

Roughly one year after the remnants of Typhoon Halong made landfall, the Anchorage Assembly is considering a code change to allow the municipality to declare a civil emergency for natural disasters that occur outside city limits.

It's likely future natural disasters with require aid and resources from Anchorage. The proposal recognizes city's status as a "logistical hub," housing the state's largest hospitals, airports and community centers as well as regional headquarters for the Alaska National Guard and federal military forces.

"A lot of situations that happen somewhere else may have some impact on us," said Assembly Chair Anna Brawley, who sponsored the ordinance with Mayor Suzanne LaFrance and member George Martinez.

The code change is intended to help the municipality seek state and federal reimbursement and act quickly when a disaster creates "extraordinary" emergency response needs in Anchorage, LaFrance said.

The municipality played an essential role in the state's disaster recovery efforts last year, LaFrance said. City officials are still waiting for the state to reimburse more than half a million dollars, according to Loach.

"When disaster strikes an Alaska community, we don't ask whether it's inside Anchorage's boundaries before we help," LaFrance said in a prepared statement Thursday. "We step up."

"This ordinance simply ensures that our municipal code matches that reality and gives Anchorage the tools to respond," LaFrance continued.

Once the municipality declared an emergency, it caused what Loach called a "waterfall effect" through different parts of the community as city staff, schools and healthcare workers prepared to aid evacuees.

"(The declaration) lets people know that there is a serious situation. ... Because we know when there's a disaster declaration that there are not enough resources to address it with regular emergency services," Loach said.

The total cost of the disaster is anticipated to be around $400 million, Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management spokesperson Jeremy Zidek said Friday. Exactly how these communities proceed with rebuilding will affect this figure, he said.

Many families from Kipnuk, Kwigillingok and other Western Alaska communities remain in Anchorage, unsure when they will be able to return home.

The city spent roughly $560,000 assisting the state's emergency operations, Loach said, the majority on labor. The city relied on an agreement with the state through which it invoiced for its emergency response costs, she said.

So far, the municipality has only been reimbursed for 2.4% of the cost, equivalent to about $13,500, Loach said.

While she said she viewed the reimbursement process as somewhat separate from the code change, Loach said a potential next step is exploring "better administrative or financial preparedness" so recovery expenses can be recovered as quickly as possible.

Loach also called the proposed policy change forward progress for disaster preparedness in host cities like Anchorage. With natural disasters like spring flooding and wildfire in mind, she said other emergency managers in the Matanuska-Susitna and Fairbanks North Star boroughs have shown interest in the legislation.

"If you have a season, for example, for hurricanes, you're used to welcoming in every year people that might be moving away from harm," Loach said.

"So there's a lot of precedent in this area of planning to host communities that are impacted by disasters," she said. "We just don't have that groundwork here in Alaska."

The Assembly is scheduled to take up the ordinance at its next meeting on Nov. 17.

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