Wake Island evacuates as super typhoon bears down

Honolulu Statr Bulletin ^ | 8/29/06 | Gregg K. Kakesako

[conservative in nyc]

Some part of American soil will likely get hit by a Category 5 hurricane this week. Here's a map that shows Wake Island's location:


Ioke is a really big, classic-looking hurricane:

[conservative in nyc]

These are the "buses" used to evacuate Wake's residents:


Maj. James Hill supervised the loading of civilians, most of them Thai nationals, who were forced to leave Wake Island yesterday morning because of Super Typhoon Ioke, which was expected to slam the island tomorrow. The Air Force sent two C-17 Globemaster cargo jets to evacuate 188 people.

[Fiddlstix]

Ping

[brytlea]

I've actually been to Wake Island. I don't remember much about it because I was 5 years old and it was the middle of the night. It was on the way from the US to Japan. I wonder what people do there for a living....
susie

[Extremely Extreme Extremist]

Man can you imagine just living out there, waking up to sunshine and 80 degree weather everyday? If I get rich I'm definetly retiring to an island in the Pacific.

[miliantnutcase]

Where's FEMA!!!! Don't worry Wake will be rebuilt as a chocolate island!

[Talking_Mouse]

If there are only 188 of them, most of them are probably either stationed there or support for the base there.

[conservative in nyc]

There's more info on Sunday night's thread. "Wake Island supports U.S. Pacific Command major regional taskings. The base provides facilities, vehicles, aerospace ground equipment and aviation fuel to sustain aircraft for combat operations." The airstrip also is available for emergency landings on trans-Pacific flights.

[NordP]

My Mom lives in Hawaii, and told me that they are mostly on the island to study marine and island creatures, plants, etc.

[Strategerist]

Winds were recorded at 130 knots, with gusts up to 160 knots.

Bit of an error in the article but I find it's common for people not to understand something about almost all tropical systems that do not get aircraft recon..the winds and the pressure are VERY vaguely GUESTIMATED by looking at satellite pictures, not actually measured by anything.

Nobody and nothing has actually measured the winds of Ioke in any form.

[SandRat]

Wake is about to Quake from the wrath of nature.

[NordP]

Interesting you should say that. Mom also reported a 3.+ earthquake on Oahu, last night. She lived in CA for 5 years in the late 70s and remembers what they feel like. Hawaii doesn't usually get earthquakes, and it was a weird evening for her (nearly 86 yrs.old).

[Experiment 6-2-6]

I wonder what people do there for a living....

Do for a living?

You mean, like a job?

Us island folks have no job.

We just sit under the palm trees eating bananas!

[Parley Baer]

While in the Navy flying to the Philipines we stopped over on Wake Island to refuel both the plane and the passengers. I can say I have been there.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Oh, bite me.

And send me some bananas!

Now - I think I'll go have a Guiness and go to bed. :)

[Ax]

I stopped at Wake Island in 1961 on my way to Clark AB in the Philippines and again in 1962 on my way to CONUS. We went to the mess hall both times. In 1961 I didn't think the Air Force could have a worse mess hall; in 1962, nothing had changed. I remember the Aerodrome OOD coming into the mess hall, dressed in PT shorts, PF Keds, a sidearm and a pith helmet and nothing else. It wouldn't take long, maybe 30 minutes, for island fever to set in.

In 1963 I found a worse mess hall: the "dining facility" at McGuire AFB, NJ, where we were being separated. Awful, awful, awful.

[dogcaller]

At least Wake is above sea level...whose idea was it to put several hundred thousand helpless and/or ignorant govenment dependents in a sinking coastal city already 15 feet below sea level...

[conservative in nyc]

Bit of an error in the article but I find it's common for people not to understand something about almost all tropical systems that do not get aircraft recon..the winds and the pressure are VERY vaguely GUESTIMATED by looking at satellite pictures, not actually measured by anything.

True. The last Ioke statement available on the Central Pacific Hurricane Center's website noted that winds and pressure were being estimated from satellite guidance. Since the hurricane passed the International Date Line, it is now being monitored by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

Hurricane Ioke has been on a U.S. minor outlying territories destruction tour. It struck the usually-uninhabited Johnston Island late last week as a category 2. According to news reports, thirteen people aboard an Air Force research vessel in the vicinity took shelter from the storm in the island's hurricane-proof bunker (one of the few standing structures there since the military pulled out a few years ago) instead of riding out the storm on the ship. They weathered the storm and on their way back to Honolulu, but the research vessel's communications equipment was damaged. Depending on the equipment they had on their ship and whatever was left on the island, they might have taken readings when the storm passed.

Fortunately, it doesn't look like Guam is next on Ioke's U.S. territory destruction tour. Japan might not be so lucky, if the track continues as expected - but there's a long way for this super typhoon to go, and it will likely lose a lot of strength before then. Here's the track map:

[miliantnutcase]

Sounds like something Planned Parenthood would do...

[gotribe]

...188 residents who were evacuated by the Air Force and flown to Honolulu in two C-17 Globemaster cargo jets yesterday.

I should be so lucky.