People in Newtok have been without power for almost three weeks. Families without personal generators have seen their freezers thaw out, and watched a summer’s worth of subsistence harvest go to waste.

A storm system during the last week of November brought high winds and seas to Newtok and other western Alaska communities.

Moving Newtok residents to the new village of Mertarvik has been planned for decades. This month, several families moved into new homes.

It was 20 years coming, but it finaly began this weekend: the first residents of Mertarvik moved into their new homes.

When the river takes the first houses, the village could start to scatter. And Newtok’s blend of the modern and traditional could erode away with the land.