The storm, which began hitting Alaska late on Tuesday after building over the North Pacific Ocean, brought winds measured at up to 89 miles per hour and flooded parts of some Native villages along the coastline.
There were no reports of deaths or injuries as of Wednesday evening, and damage tallied so far was caused largely by wind and included reports of tin roofs flying off and power lines down, authorities said.
"This is a storm of epic proportions, as it's being described,'' said Jeff Osiensky, a meteorologist and regional warning coordinator for the National Weather Service. "This is kind of ratcheted up to a level much higher than we've been accustomed to.''
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Most of western Alaska is at high risk, from the Yupik Eskimo community of Bethel in the Yukon-Kuskowim delta to the Inupiat Eskimo village of Wainwright on the North Slope, according to the National Weather Service.
But one of the hardest-hit areas so far has been Nome, a former Gold Rush boomtown famous as the end of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, and surrounding villages.
There, the storm tossed debris onto roads, making driving dangerous, city officials reported. Waves have launched ''fist-sized rocks'' and logs up to two feet in diameter onto the roadway, officials said.
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Powerful storms of this magnitude are common at this time of year in the Bering Sea and North Pacific, but this storm is unusual because of its northward trajectory and the lack of sea ice in near-shore areas like Norton Sound off Nome, National Weather Service and other agency officials said.
"Forty years ago, a big storm like this would come through and the sea ice would act as sort of a buffer,'' said Mark Serreze, director of the Snow and Ice Data Center.
"The Bering Sea has and always will have these strong storms. What is different now is their potential destructiveness as you lose the sea ice cover,'' he added.
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