Posted on 12/02/2009 8:39:24 AM PST by GATOR NAVY
The storm mucking up Southcentral Alaska this week battered a far-flung U.S. Coast Guard outpost in the Aleutians over the weekend with hurricane-force winds, according to the National Weather Service.
Out in Attu, the crew of the Coast Guard's Long-Range Navigation Station reported sustained winds of 125 mph with gusts hitting 178 mph over the weekend. The station also got more than a foot and a half of snow.
The gusts, equivalent to the winds of a Category 5 hurricane, damaged a communications antenna, which broke free from three securing mounts, the Coast Guard said.
The station's crew has been making repairs and has spent more than 100 hours on snow removal.
There are 20 active-duty personnel based at the station on year-long assignments.
(Excerpt) Read more at adn.com ...
Mike
Are the crab fishermen out on that sea right now?
It’s global warming, I tell ya!!
Sounds like a perfect place to move the Gitmo detainees. Alaska could probably be persuaded to cede one of these islands to territorial status so the ACLU would have to get a visa from the Department of Defense to visit them.
I always wondered why all the buildings and telephone poles in Okinawa were made from concrete- until we went through our first typhoon.
Pick a barren one and drop them off with a single edge razor and a spork, then let nature take it’s course.
That must be some great duty.
Lots of checkers, and strong arms from shoveling.
Thanks, no. I’d rather go to Key West.
I was thinking the same thing.
Not if they’re smart.
Great idea.
Go ahead, Mohammed, break out of prison. You’ll be an allacicle for the polar bears within 20 minutes.
Translation: There are 20 Coasties serving time for various infractions that were insufficiently serious to end a career.
‘Now we know where the Coast Guard sends you when the detailer hates you ;-)’
Damn straight. Icebreakers and bouy tending boats are tough duty but weather stations are the pits. Long hours, boredom and extreme conditions. Back before we had enough weather satellites most weather station duty was on ships. Try sitting for a month somewhere off the coast of Labradore doing three to five hour watches strapped into a encapsuled crowsnest fifty feet above the deck making 30 degee arcs with little or no heat...God bless the men of the USCG. They are about as tough as they come.
Yep. I wonder who you have to piss off, er, uh, I mean what you have to do to earn assignment to a post like that?
The AF used to send the problem children to Greenland, or Guam.
I had a friend on a sub who wanted off the boat. His captain made sure he went to Diego Garcia in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
| > 178 mph gusts batter Aleutian Coast Guard outpost WOW, that is some COLD, DENSE air coming our way. It also sounds like a new official record for Alaska!:
From July 16, 2001
-snip-
The island of Attu, in the Aleutians, holds the official record for highest wind gust in Alaska with a 159 mph blast in 1950. |
That's such a brilliant idea, that it will never, ever be implemented.
Good reason to behave in the Guard ping. ;)
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