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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 5h

Update on the Municipality's response to the typhoon. I detailed a member of my team to help with the shelter and housing issues.

www.adn.com/alaska-news/...

Anchorage coordinates to help over 1,000 Western Alaska evacuees as mayor declares civil emergency

The Alaska Community Foundation had collected more than $1.4 million through the Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund as of Friday.

www.adn.com

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 21h

Local media is reporting more than 2,000 people at the Anchorage event.

alaskapublic.org/news/anchora...

More than 2,000 people attend Anchorage No Kings rally, joining hundreds statewide

As the bulk of the crowd packed the park, dozens of rallygoers lined Fifth and Sixth avenues waving signs and receiving supportive honks from passing cars.

alaskapublic.org

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 21h

alaskapublic.org/news/anchora...

More than 2,000 people attend Anchorage No Kings rally, joining hundreds statewide

As the bulk of the crowd packed the park, dozens of rallygoers lined Fifth and Sixth avenues waving signs and receiving supportive honks from passing cars.

alaskapublic.org

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 1d

Sign at Anchorage No Kings: “Kristi Noem is Like a Box of Chocolates: Both Kill Dogs.”

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 1d

Update: No Kings Anchorage was great and they won the game.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 1d

No Kings Anchorage.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 1d

Multiple speakers have mentioned the flooding and blamed it on Trump. (Correctly!)

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 1d

Signs at No Kings Anchorage.

Signs hanging off the side of a building: “No Kings Rally” and “Because I ❤️ America.”

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 1d

No Kings Anchorage. The building in the background is the Egan Convention Center, one of the four shelter sites for evacuees from the flooded villages in western Alaska.

Protest signs at No Kings Anchorage with Egan Center in background.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 1d

No Kings Anchorage.

No Kings protest at Town Square Park in Anchorage, Alaska.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 1d

My wife drove by this earlier today and said it was huge. (Her dad is coaching in the state championship football game which is being held at Wasilla High.) I'm going to the one in Anchorage that starts in a few minutes.

Kermit’s Resistance @empathy-is-sexy.bsky.social · 1d

#nokings Wasilla Alaska

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 2d

I stopped over there on my lunch break and a lot of the booths had those signs posted, including many of the arts and crafts ones. That feels like a new development.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 2d

Judaism is very much not for everyone, but when it's for any particular person it's very very obvious.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 2d

I was once stuck in Wales for most of a week due to weather. Very interesting place but not a plausible site for a massive transportation infrastructure project.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 2d

Both, and so much more. Just getting to the American side of the strait requires flying in a small plane or helicopter, if the weather allows you to get through at all. Those villages (and they are very small villages even by Alaska standards) are routinely inaccessible for periods of days to weeks.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 2d

Especially funny is that on that map the tunnel on the US side goes *past* Wales to... where? Tin City? Brevig Mission? Nome is in that direction but it's quite a bit further away.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 2d

This is of course vaporware that will never happen, but if you know anything about that area it is extremely funny that they would even consider trying to do this.

Lora Kolodny @lorak.bsky.social · 2d

A Putin envoy has entreated Musk and the Boring Co. to build an undersea tunnel connecting Russia to Alaska through the Bering Strait for the low low price of $8 billion. The Trump-Putin tunnel. details @cnbc.com www.cnbc.com/2025/10/17/m...

Kremlin pitches Musk on 'Putin-Trump' tunnel from Russia to Alaska

The suggestion came amid talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump about possible resolutions to Russia's war in Ukraine.

www.cnbc.com

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 2d

Even for us it's a stretch, honestly, but we're just going to have to make it work. We do have a very good team in place.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 2d

Update on the flood response. Anchorage is hundreds of miles away from the actual flooding but we are nevertheless going to need to play a big role in the response and recovery because there's nowhere else that can take this many people.

www.adn.com/alaska-news/...

Anchorage preparing to house more than 1,000 Western Alaska storm evacuees across 4 shelters

Anchorage will temporarily shelter people at the Alaska Airlines Center, the Egan Center and the Fairview and Spenard recreation centers.

www.adn.com

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 3d

Eli Lilly, surely.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 3d

The fact that he sucks in general actually makes this even more significant as a bellwether.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 3d

The immediate response to this is going to be a huge lift, but especially in the medium term it's actually going to dovetail fortuitously with some of the other stuff we've been working on with microunits and modular housing.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 3d

To illustrate some of the points from earlier in the thread, here are some pictures I took of Kwig, one of the hardest-hit villages, on a trip there ten years ago.

Aerial view of swampy tundra with a river channel cutting through it and the village of Kwigillingok along its banks.

Aerial view of buildings and boardwalks in Kwigillingok, Alaska.

Ground view of buildings in Kwigillingok with a water body in front of them and flat tundra in the foreground.

Ground view of buildings abs boardwalks in Kwigillingok.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 3d

I haven't seen this reported publicly, but municipal employees have been told to expect Anchorage to receive about 2,000 people total for an extended but indefinite time. That's in addition to however many are able to stay in the region or go to other parts of the state.

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J. Sam Drolet @jsamdrolet.bsky.social · 3d

Update: The National Guard has begun airlifting hundreds of residents of the hardest-hit villages to Anchorage.
www.adn.com/alaska-news/...

Hundreds airlifted from storm-battered Western Alaska villages in historic mass evacuation

The Alaska Airlines Center arena at the University of Alaska Anchorage will shelter 300 displaced residents starting Wednesday evening, the American Red Cross said.

www.adn.com

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