avalanche, a threat made a lot worse by the rains. the weather has paralyzed this fishing town of 2200 people. kids have missed, get this, 25 days of school. they might be doing make-up days in august. >> usually it snows, and it rains, then it snows and it rains, but this winter it's just snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed. >> reporter: meantime, the problem is ice in the bering sea just off the coast of nome in northwest alaska. there is a dramatic effort to deliver 1.3 million gallons of fuel to nome. an early november storm prevented a barge from making the annual delivery. right now nome is out of diesel fuel and only a couple months' supply of the all-important heating oil. the coast guard is lead ago russian oil tanker into nome, but conditions are rough, and progress has been very slow. they are hoping to have delivery by the weekend, but it is not guaranteed by any means. if they can't get all that fuel into nome by the next couple of