When natural disasters strike in the Lower 48, people affected are compensated for income lost from wage-earning jobs that have been interrupted, as well as lost assets with assigned financial value.

Kelsey Ciugun Wallace, president of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and Shea Siegert, senior manager of external affairs at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium, on Oct. 30, 2025, read a recipe for uunaalik that is attached to a bag of muktuk slides. Muktuk is whale blubber with attached skin, and uunaalik is a disk of boiled muktuk. The muktuk was among a collection of Native foods donated from the North Slope community of Utqiagvik for distribution to people displaced by Tyhpoon Halong. The foods were being stored in a freezer trailer at the Alaska Native Heritage Center. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
Kelsey Ciugun Wallace, president of the Alaska Native Heritage Center, and Shea Siegert, senior manager of external affairs at the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium read a recipe for uunaalik that is attached to a bag of muktuk slides on Oct. 30, 2025. Muktuk…