Bering Sea Gold

The following is a coastal flood warning

issued by the National Weather Service.

For the southern Seward Peninsula coast including Nome.

- Numerous roads will be closed.

Low-lying property including homes, businesses,

the airport and other critical infrastructure will be inundated.

We've got a big under due storm coming in.

An 11-17 foot storm surge.

I don't know if we're gonna make it.

Right now, it looks like an absolute warzone.

If my boat breaks off,

it'll start wiping out buildings.

Well, my tail boat has cut loose.

This is coming over the sea wall.

That's 20 feet.

Hey, watch out!

- is flying off the building.

It'll be a wipeout for this town.

Beautiful sunny day, today.

It's the calm before the storm.

Once this storm hits,

we don't want to be trying to secure our boats

in the storm and put people's lives at risk.

We're gonna get our stuff,

get it secured, get everything where we want it to be.

We're getting prepped to protect

everything we've worked so hard to get.

Oh, I'm getting my crane outta here.

In case it floods.

And, I don't want it getting hammered with salt water.

Gonna get all the boats secured and tied together.

This is how we make a living,

we've got to protect what we've worked so hard to get.

It's coming.

And, it's gonna come in with some fury.

They're saying a 14-foot surge.

On the water.

It's gonna be bad. This could be bad for Nome.

We should probably get some lines.

Just for and giggles.

From there to here,

And there to the see ark.

You got spuds

but it's always good to be tied off.

You never know what the hell is gonna happen.

How bad it's gonna really get, so...

Better be overprepared than underprepared.

Well, we got the Ofer.

Christine Rose, Myrtle.

Touveli and the tugboat.

We got all the boats secured to the Myrtle.

'Cause it's got big spuds.

Supposed to come up 15-foot.

If it comes up 15-foot,

it's gonna leave an annihilation of boats

and things in the harbor

but I'm pretty well protected down here.

The south wind should blow anybody else that way.

if the spuds come loose,

we've got lines to the dock.

On both sides.

We should be just fine.

So, right now, we're on the edge of it.

It's coming.

I just got a call from the harbor master

that I need to move my dredge

because they're trying to consolidate the space out here in the harbor.

So...

Yeah, I've got to find somewhere else

to park my dredge.

Gonna be a fat storm. It's gonna be a gnarly one.

I just got to go out and check on the dredge from time to time.

Because it's gonna be like a...

I heard, a 70-hour storm, so...

Within that time frame,

I should check on it periodically.

The combines are crazy dusty.

Oh, there you go.

It's a good spot to tie it up to.

Norpack.

See, that's good.

I'll just tie up to my dad's boat.

Perfect.

Yeah, looks like it's gonna be alright.

There we go.

Ta-da!

I think that'll work.

Yes, we're just gonna wait and see.

Come back and check.

So, Friday is just gonna be terrible.

I might have to evacuate.

They're calling-- They're calling for

evacuation on my street.

Because this-- The whole--

There's gonna be a bunch of street that they're gonna close down

due to the flood, you know what I mean?

And I'm part of that plan.

I'm in the flood zone.

So, yeah.

I might have to get the hell out of here.

Before I get swamped.

We got some weather coming in.

I can see it coming.

Port side, this is gonna be a big one.

Gonna be like, 70 knots.

I just bought this other dredge called The Eldorado.

I want to bring it in here and tie it up to the dock.

We've got to get this job done.

The weather's coming. You can see storm clouds back over there.

The birds being gathered like this,

definitely, they know something is coming.

Yo, Kevin? You want me to spin it that way?

Okay, forward.

Well, here we go.

At least, she's moving.

We're on the way

and we're headed over here,

alongside the south wall.

We want it so we can stop when we get there.

Don't crash into the dock.

I've got a feeling that this storm that's coming through,

not everybody's gonna make the cut.

Storm of 1913 sunk a bunch of ships out here.

Caused a lot of damage. Flooded the city.

Chad's gets washed out at the graveyard.

Were floating up and down the streets.

It was a bad storm.

Okay, Kevin, just put it in neutral.

I've just got to get it in there real close.

And send you up a line.

Okay, little bit more on the engine.

Thrust left.

And dead slow on the engine.

Come ahead a little bit more.

Thrust left.

Okay, pull us in.

Just take it nice and easy and don't bang into anything.

Alright Kevin, that's good.

Okay, we're here.

Put down a couple more lines on this thing.

The water's gonna be coming in and so...

Nobody knows what's gonna happen.

We need to go to the grocery store and soon.

And we need to buy cases of water.

The water's gonna be contaminated in this town.

If power goes down, everything goes down.

- Yeah, yeah. -The wate-- The sewer,

the water that runs to your house.

The , you know, the-- Everything.

So right now, there's a big storm headed for Nome.

We haven't seen a storm this size since the '70s.

So, the whole town is in red alert.

Everybody's talking between 12-15 foot waves

coming to hit Nome.

It looks like the whole town's gonna be flooded.

And, we've got to make sure our boat

doesn't drift away.

Because, you know how high that wall is?

That we're climbing up and down the ladder?

The word on the street is that

the ocean's supposed to rise to that level.

And, my boat is gonna be floating like,

right on the ridge.

Let's go back to work.

So, I know for a fact,

that we're gonna run into problems tomorrow.

So, big storms like this,

I've never been through one in Nome,

so, we're gonna have to play it by ear.

And, just be ready to fight.

Fight through the storm.

Worst case scenario,

water level will be at the tip of this.

Worst case scenario.

Yeah, we're gonna have to clear everything off

of the top of the deck.

We need to tarp that box, that dog house.

'Cause that thing's gonna probably blow away on us.

Andy?

We need to secure down that hydraulic hose

to make sure that it doesn't fall in the water.

-Ready? - Hold on, hold on.

We're in the middle of trying to get ready

for this 50-year storm.

Today, we're gonna take out the skip,

we're gonna get generators to each house

with 20 gallons of gas.

'Cause, right now, we just have to make sure

we have the necessities.

We ride out this storm.

We make sure we're on watch for the boat.

And, we make sure we're all okay and our neighbors.

Oh, for sure.

Get that generator at my house.

Right now, we're going into an extremely serious situation.

Gonna have to stay up 24 hours a day

because I can't lose my barge, no matter what.

Uhm, the wind's starting to pick up now.

The storm's arriving now.

You know, so we have to do something now.