Extreme winter weather has left one Alaskan town battling huge snowdrifts and forced another to seek fuel supplies from a Russian tanker.
The Alaskan National Guard has arrived to dig out the town of Cordova, which has seen 10ft (3m) of snow in a week.
Drifts in the town of 2,000 trapped some residents in their homes.
Further north, US Coast Guard and Russian vessels are attempting to reach Nome, which has been cut off by ice and is facing a fuel shortage.
The US ship, the Healy, is attempting to cut a path through thick ice in the Bering Sea, ahead of a Russian tanker called Renda which is carrying 1.3 million gallons (4.9 million litres) of oil.
But shifting ice up to 3ft thick in the area is hindering the process, forcing the ice-breaker to double back to recut a path.
The scale of the mission is unprecedented for the US Coast Guard in the Arctic, Commander Greg Tlapa told the Associated Press.
Flying in the fuel would be possible but extremely expensive, Nome officials say.
A severe autumn storm prevented a usual pre-winter delivery of fuel and cut off the town where temperatures regularly drop below zero Fahrenheit (-18 C) in January.
But the resupply effort also needed to clear bureaucratic hurdles - a waiver was needed to allow a non-US ship to deliver the goods
Cordova cave-inIn Cordova, a fishing town only accessible by air and water, heavy falls of snow were followed over the weekend by rain that weighed down the snow, creating dangerous conditions.
Pressure on the ice is so great that the icebreaker has needed to circle back to reopen the pathSome roofs in the town have collapsed or caved-in under the weight of up to 7ft of snow.
John Madden, the director of Alaska's division of homeland security and emergency management, told the BBC that after a full day of work on Monday, another storm on Tuesday is expected to bring an additional 10in to 16in of snow.
Crews will are unlikely to be able to get back to work until the weekend, Mr Madden said.
Drifts from the pitched roof of one restaurant slid off and broke the roof of a back shed. A bank building also suffered a interior buckled wall.
No injuries have been reported so far in the town, but Alaska officials state of emergency was declared on Friday. National Guard troops arrived on Sunday to begin digging out.
Sunday's arrival also included a snow-melting machine, and equipment to help dig out the most at-risk buildings.
Cordova is estimated to have received 18ft to 20ft of snow in the past 60 days, Mr Madden said.
"It's the right time of the year for storms, but we have had so many", he said, adding that the town has been hit by three separate storms within the past seven days.
The town is "well-prepared" for storms, but needs help getting ahead of the storms, Mr Madden said.
Additional snow in the forecast and potential winds of 70 to 80mph will increase the risk of avalanches cutting off the main road to the airport. Cordova itself is not in high danger from avalanches.
"The only thing we're really lacking is - there's not a snow shovel left in town," Allen Marquette, a city spokesman told the Alaska Dispatch newspaper.
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