Color-indexed elevation maps for western Alaska
When an extreme storm is forecast for coastal Alaska, local community leaders and emergency managers wonder "How high will floodwaters reach?" and "Where are negative impacts most likely to occur?" These maps give community leaders and emergency managers a common and clear reference to communicate with one another and with the National Weather Service.
These color-indexed maps, freely available for download in PDF format, merge best-available datasets into a tool that can streamline communication about forecasted water levels, local elevations, and potentially impacted infrastructure in advance of storm events that may cause coastal flooding. These maps are not designed to function as flood inundation maps, but to serve as a tool to communicate about elevations in at-risk coastal communities until true inundation mapping can be completed.
Maps are available for the following communities in Alaska:
- Brevig Mission
- Golovin
- Hooper Bay
- Nome
- Kivalina
- Nunam Iqua
- Shaktoolik
- Shishmaref
- Teller
- Toksook Bay
- Tununak, Alaska
- Unalakleet
- Wales
