During the response to the spring 2009 flooding and ice jams in Alaska, many logistical difficulties were encountered due to rural Alaska���s varying landscape and infrastructure.

David Kang:  Alaska is a very large state, and everyone within the United States knows Alaska is a large state, but what they don���t realize is that Alaska lacks transportation infrastructure.  There���s basically only one road that goes north and south, and that���s about it.  To get from Anchorage to Fairbanks to these smaller communities you���d have to get there by plane, air transportation.  We have no rail system, very limited rail system, and most of our barges support our communities seasonally.  

Tim Wilcox:  At times it���s challenging, here on the river it���s a little different because there���s no navigational aids so we always have to send a pilot boat out in front of us to go and find the channel and the channel always moves.  And so quite often we���ll go down river on one channel and when we come back we���ll find out the channel has shifted.

David Kang:  What kind of hindered some of the transportation movements of our smaller planes servicing from our hub communities of Fairbanks and Anchorage and moving the goods to our impacted communities in the 2009 floods is the fact that we had forest fires that occurred during June and July.  

Emma Tryon:  With the really dry weather this summer the fires have been pretty bad, it causes a lot of smoke, visibility���s reduced.  A lot of the villages they don���t have instrument approaches into them.

Mick McCurry:  We���re moving 2000 pounds of freight to Akiak and two of the volunteers.  Well here in Alaska of course a lot of the villages you can���t get there unless you go by air.  As far as Air Ops here in Alaska, we���re doing flights almost every day to various villages to move staff in and out.

Peggy Mitchell:  There���s been a lot of issues with the wild fires, smoke from the wild fires and then the last few days it���s been because of the rain and lowering that smoke to where the visibility is below a half a mile so that they weren���t able to take off.  Well this morning we���re picking up supplies from our local vendors and we���ll be loading them and distributing them where they need to go.  Some will go to an air cargo place to take to one of the villages, others we���ll keep on our truck until tomorrow when we���ll take to the Yukon River to catch a boat to be shipped up to the other village.  Dalton Highway, well it���s um, not the best highway in the world, but it���s a pretty good size highway, it���s mostly dirt though for a lot of miles.  We���re heading to the Yukon River Camp to meet up with the boat to take supplies to Stevens Village.  

David Kang:  Keep in mind we still have a very short window of time to do things in Alaska, because of our upcoming approaching winter season.  So again that just amplifies the need for really good planning, outside the box thinking and knowing how Alaska functions.

Because rural Alaska���s primary transportation is different, FEMA reimbursed for both ATVs for the summer and snowmobiles for the win