Friday, April 24, 2009

The Village of Nunam Iqua Is Out of Heating Fuel

Celtic Diva brought this to my attention.

The people of the village of Nunam Iqua have NO heating fuel left to get them through until break-up, which is roughly six weeks away.

Now, I KNOW this isn't as important to our Governor as an anti-abortion speech in Indiana, but to the rest of us Alaskans (well, maybe not Fairbanks Rep. Mike Kelly either), it should be pretty damned important.

These people have a helluva lot more winter left to get through.

They need our help. It's what decent people do for each other.

Feelers are being put out right now to see what can be done.

Stay tuned.

3 comments:

Matt Osborne said...

Possible short story title: "The Freezing of Sarah Palin."

Anonymous said...

It's very difficult to put Palin into the same sentence with decency since they tend to annihilate and become X-rays.

I assume that more heating oil would have to be flown in?

Us non-Alaskans are not well-informed on how the remote villages receive supplies.

Wolfe Tone said...

Git,

Nunam Iqua is a village located just off the shore of the Bering Sea on a south fork of the Yukon River, on the west coast of Alaska. It's about 500 miles northwest of Anchorage. There are no roads to western Alaska.

I believe most of their fuel is barged in during the summer months before the sea freezes over, and they hope that the quantity they have on hand will last through winter until the sea is open again.

There is a 3,000 gravel airstrip there. If money for fuel can be scraped together, there may by a supplier who can fly some in, enough to get them through until they are ice-free.

I have a feeler out to a company that flies fuel to bush Alaska, but frankly, I don't hold a lot of hope for this route. We'll see, though. Fingers crossed.

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