U.S. census head count launched in rural Alaska after weather delay

BETHEL, Alaska (Reuters) – The U.S. Census Bureau, after being delayed for several hours by inclement weather, launched its latest once-in-a-decade head count of Americans on Tuesday in one of the most remote corners of the country – a tiny Alaska Native village on the Bering Sea coast.

The 2020 population tally had been slated to start Tuesday morning with a ceremonial welcoming of Census Bureau Director Steven Dillingham and his team to Toksook Bay, a Yup’ik village about 500 miles (805 km) west of Anchorage.

But two planes chartered for Dillingham’s group ended up temporarily grounded by freezing fog and low clouds during their stopover in the southwestern Alaska town of Bethel. A break in the weather finally allowed the party to take off five hours later than scheduled for the 40-minute flight to Toksook Bay, where they joined census takers waiting there to begin the census.

But Dillingham and his entourage only remained on the ground for 30 minutes before returning to Bethel due to worsening weather conditions, spokeswoman Virginia Hyer later told Reuters.

While in Toksook Bay, Dillingham rode on a snowmobile to the home of a village elder pre-selected by the tribal council for the honor of becoming the first American counted in the 2020 census. Dillingham then paid a hurried visit to a public school to see a quickly performed traditional dance ceremony and delivered some remarks before being whisked back to the airfield for the flight out, Hyer said.

The team of census takers left behind then fanned out to the rest of the community.

The census, a decennial endeavor mandated in the U.S. Constitution, is the basis for redrawing state legislative districts and reapportionment of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives. It also guides government funding for an array of programs and services and produces some of the world’s most widely used statistics.

In the Lower 48 states, census mailings typically go out to households in mid-March, with April 1 designated the date of record for residential submissions. Most people respond online, by mail or by telephone. But in sprawling rural Alaska where travel can be challenging due to a scarcity of roads and extreme weather, the census must start sooner.

The Census Bureau traditionally selects one or more remote Native villages to begin its official enumeration. But the kickoff in Alaska is about more than counting residents. It is also meant to draw attention.

“It’s the first time the word is really getting across the nation that the 2020 census is here,” Dillingham said on Saturday.

Census officials spent several days in the state meeting with Alaska Natives and others among groups that tend to be undercounted – immigrants and college students. The agency has translated its materials into several indigenous languages.

The bureau expects to hire 300,000 to 500,000 census takers for the 2020 count, and has so far taken 1.8 million applications for those temporary jobs, Dillingham said.

He acknowledged that immigrants feeling vulnerable about their status may be reluctant to respond to questionnaires, but stressed that all data collected is confidential.

The Trump administration tried to insert a question about citizenship status in this year’s census form, which critics said would have made immigrants more fearful of the process. The U.S. Supreme Court blocked that plan.