The U.S. Coast Guard commander for Western Alaska compared the devastation in Southwest Alaska villages over the weekend to the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“Several of these villages have been completely devastated, absolutely flooded, several feet deep,” Coast Guard Capt. Christopher Culpepper said at a news conference Monday. “This took homes off of foundations. This took people into peril, where folks were swimming, floating, trying to find debris to hold onto in the cover of darkness.”

The remnants of Typhoon Halong barreled into remote, coastal communities in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta on Sunday, bringing hurricane-force winds and record flood waters. Coast Guard and National Guard crews have rescued at least 51 people so far from two of the hardest-hit communities: Kipnuk and

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