Cut off from their jobs at home, Alaska typhoon evacuees have alternative income options

For wage-earning Alaskans who were displaced by the remnants of Typhoon Halong, a powerful storm that lashed the western coast of the state earlier this month, qualifying for one special type of federal assistance could be a cinch.

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Disaster Unemployment Assistance program provides financial benefits to people who cannot perform their normal jobs because of disaster interference. One qualification for the benefits — $153 to $370 per week for up to 27 weeks, according to the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development — is an inability to reach normal worksites.

Among the hundreds of Yukon-Kuskokwim region residents who were evacuated by military flights to Anchorage, nearly 500 miles to the east of their home villages, those that held wage-e