A small Inupiat village in northwest Alaska is dealing with widespread flooding after melting ice blocked a nearby river, causing water to spill into the town.

Buckland, Alaska, is shown in photos with water creeping up to homes. The flood was caused by an ice jam in the Buckland River about a quarter mile below the community. The Associated Press reported on Thursday that the entire community of about 500 residents is inundated.

“Even using hip waders, I can’t leave my house because the water is too deep,” Buckland's mayor, Nathan Hadley Jr., said, calling the flooding the worst he’s seen in the town in two decades.

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Scott Berg, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Fairbanks reported that the access road to the airport has been completely flooded.

The city of Buckland and the local tribal council have been coordinating with volunteers to boat people around town to the store and back and forth from the air strip, and at least three families had to be evacuated from their homes overnight Wednesday. More residents have been preparing for evacuation if the flooding worsens. Volunteers were also working to secure homes so that they don't float away in the flood.

Two evacuation shelters have been opened in the area, with one catering to those in quarantine due to COVID-19 mandates.

Hadley told Alaska Public Media that he hadn't heard of any reports of injuries.

Homes in Buckland sit on stilts, and the floodwater has reached the bottom of the homes but hasn't gotten inside any homes in a major way, Jeremy Zidek, spokesman for the Alaska Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, reported.

The National Weather Service said that water levels are expected to stay high and may fluctuate until the ice breaks up, and issued a flood warning for the community through Saturday morning.

Lack of ice above the community means that the ice jam shouldn't worsen, according Zidek. But warming weather could cause more of a surge from melting snow, Hadley said.

Just when the ice jam will give is tough to predict.

"It could be hours, could be a day or two," Crane Johnson, hydrologist with the weather service's Alaska-Pacific River Forecast Center told the AP.

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