Wake Island farewell

A small U.S. territory, Wake Island, in the Pacific Ocean, is about to disappear under supertyphoon Ioke.

Wake Island was, until two days ago, home to about 200 people. They have been relocated to Hawaii. (I don't know about pets.)

Supertyphoon Ioke is a category 5 hurricane with waves over 50 feet in height.

The highest point on Wake Island is twenty feet above sea level.

The math's not that hard to do. A direct hit has a fair chance of removing Wake Island, which was once important enough to be invaded and occupied by the Japanese, then invaded and occupied again by the Americans (including George Herbert Walker Bush-- the fightin' Bush!)-- removing it, I say, from the map.

Granted, it's not much of an island. But it was home to somebody. Other insignificant-seeming low-lying lands-- Tuvalu, say, and Florida-- will follow over the next few years.

Cheers for the evacuation of Wake Island... let's hope all the future evacuations are as successful.

•  Oh my

  what a waste

  by BooMan23 on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:22:56 PM PDT

  •  Aren't all wars a waste.

    But yeah, it's a shame. George Bush Sr. fought the Japanese for Wake Island, and his son can't even fight global warming for it.

    by SensibleShoes on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:24:46 PM PDT

•  Thanks Sensible

  You can see it way over to the left here it's HUGE!

  Does anyone know if Tuvalu was ever able to sell its 'domain' ( don't know what its really called) name? I heard they were trying to do it to raise money. It's .tv and they figured it would be worth something.

  by buhdydharma on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:28:20 PM PDT

  •  I heard about that

    heard they were gonna use it to hire lawyers to sue the pants off the big industrial countries for global warming...

    by SensibleShoes on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:30:03 PM PDT

  •  WOW!!

    that IS a monster!  You were understating when you called it huge! Glad it's out to sea and not moving in on any populated country.

    by dougymi on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:33:46 PM PDT

    •  If you don't count Wake Island.

      Eventually, it will reach Asia, I assume.

      by SensibleShoes on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:34:45 PM PDT

      •  Well

        the diarist said that everyone was evacuated off Wake, so that wouldn't count for populated.  I'm hoping it goes into the N.Pacific where there isn't much land and lots of cold water. That should slow it down a lot.

        by dougymi on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:40:18 PM PDT

        •  I know she did

          she and I are like this ;).

          by SensibleShoes on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:42:11 PM PDT

          •  you should

            walk a mile in her shoes!

            by buhdydharma on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:44:18 PM PDT

            •  Ain't that the truth.

              I need the exercise.
              Cool blog!

              by SensibleShoes on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:45:56 PM PDT

              •  Another graphic...

                ...helps illustrate why this is a super-typhoon!

                by adios on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:50:08 PM PDT

          •  Oops!

            I didn't look at whom I was responding to.  I guess I'm getting sleepy.  Great Diary btw.  Thank you!

            by dougymi on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:50:10 PM PDT

•  Fuck Florida

  They can move to New Jersey.

  Where do Pacific Islanders go? So sad.

  by mariachi mama on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:36:36 PM PDT

  •  Other Pacific Islands

    till their ain't none left, I guess.
    This thing might also be headed for Guam, and Wake Island ain't gonna slow it down much.

    by SensibleShoes on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:38:35 PM PDT

    •  Hawaii in pretty large numbers

      many relocate here for jobs/education/health  especially those from places like Guam, Majuro Samoa etc that have the right to come here without immigration restrictions.

      Gore's movie made us sweat a little.  We're 70 ft ish above sea level, but if we get a sudden 20 ft rise we'd have water lapping at the base of our bluff.  Ocean front sounds great until you consider you could be under water not long after....

      20 ft would also destroy our closest town, knock out the road to our main town and airport and more.  The only tiny upside would be getting to rub a few conservatives I know in their "myth" feces.  

      by HiD on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:59:49 PM PDT

  •  I thought we were going to move

    Israel to New Jersey

    by le sequoit on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:40:50 PM PDT

  •  I am never

    moving back to New Jersey.

    Where do you live?  I can bunk there.

    by ForFreedom on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 11:20:33 PM PDT

•  This is sad

  nothing to do but watch and hope.

  Part of nature - but driven by man.

  by jhwygirl on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:45:21 PM PDT

  •  Well, at least all the people are out.

    Which is good.
    I wonder whether this thing will make it all the way to Asia without dissipating. Hope not. I think Guam might also be in its path.

    by SensibleShoes on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:47:13 PM PDT

•  Don't presume to know

  the culture, but it seems that a signifacant number of islanders have invested in maintaing their traditional culture against all odds.

  I'm sorry to see it being washed away. I've been reading about this, not just this storm, but rising water. Tuvalu and so on.

  Thanks for the diary.

  by mariachi mama on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:46:14 PM PDT

  •  almost all those evacuated

    were reported to be Thai nationals working at the base.  or US military.

    Wake isn't really inhabited by my definition.  Just a military base on an otherwise empty atoll.  if the runway is destroyed, maybe we'll let it go back to it's wild state.

    Ioke has been around at cat 5 for about 2 weeks now.  Had me a little nervous when it first popped up due south of us.  It went from a pimple to Cat 5 in about 48 hrs....

    by HiD on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:53:18 PM PDT

    •  didn't it have some rare bird

      indigineous to it?  Maybe that was Midway I'm thinking of. I saw something on Animal Planet about one of them.

      It looks from the track like Japan might be in bigger peril. Of course that depends on the steering currents.
                               
                       

      by dougymi on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:01:48 PM PDT

      •  blue footed booby

        by murrayewv on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:07:01 PM PDT

    •  according to wikipedia

      http://en.wikipedia.org/...

      the only human inhabitants, ever, were shipwreck victims, American military, Japanese military, and American military again.

      The only native species was a flightless bird eaten to extinction by the Japanese.

      by tritium on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:19:01 PM PDT

  •  Yeah, I dunno.

    Wasn't even aware if it was inhabited prior to its career as a WWII base-site. I gather the Japanese executed a whole buncha prisoners there but am not sure where they came from.

    Whoever lives there and however they got there, it's too bad they had to move out in such a hurry... but lucky for them. The U.S. Air Force evacuated 'em all , I guess.

    by SensibleShoes on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 08:55:28 PM PDT

•  rising sea levels

  My home is about 400 feet above sea level, beyond the cliff edge. Watch for the new world center for cliff diving on the Washington Coast south of Seattle. Big tourist attraction, so I'm saving up for a T-shirt kiosk. ;)

  by ceratotherium on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:18:46 PM PDT

•  How Long Can You Dog Paddle?

  I always remember that line from the Bill Cosby routine about Noah.

  My gut tells me that we are already past the point of no return with climate change.  Get ready and remember Solar Is Civil Defense in more ways than one.

  by gmoke on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:20:45 PM PDT

  •  "Wanna give me a hint?"

    "How long can you tread water? Ha ha ha..."

    Bill Cosby, long ago but still funny as all get out.  Until you realize that some people act out his skits without the humor.

    by Phoenix Rising on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 11:57:18 PM PDT

•  Wake Island Veterans are a treasure

  I teach history.  I had a Wake Island survivor come do a presentation for my class 22 years ago.  It is an incredible story almost no one knows now.  But I have his personal story that he typed out to read to my class, all 22 pages of it.

  The guys who held Wake in 41 are the real thing.

  War is hell.  This current war is wrong.  But the men who made their stand on Wake is what this country should be all about.

  by 7November on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:49:58 PM PDT

•  I stopped there as a child returning from

  Japan in the fifties. It was a wild trip in at least three legs on a propeller plane. I still have a piece of coral I picked up on the beach there.

  The notion of something that was tangible just disappearing is hard to accept.

  How sad.

  by dewey of the desert on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:56:19 PM PDT

•  My dad used to go to Wake Island

  all the time when I was a kid. We even have a license plate from there. (I guess it's some kind of souvenir, but it looks official.)

  He worked for the government and Wake was one of the places he traveled to regularly for "business."

  What business he did there, I could not tell you, because he never told me.

  I have no idea what happens there these days. Not a lot, I'm guessing. That's very sad. If it is washed out completely, that will be one more memory from my childhood that no longer exists.

  by Brooke In Seattle on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 10:04:55 PM PDT

•  Super-typhoon Sarah struck Wake

  Island of Sept 16, 1967.  I was there.  Another typhoon, Olive, hit Wake exactly fifteen years before.  I met a man on Wake who went through both Olive and Sarah.

  Ioke, Sarah, and Olive have so far been remarkably similiar in the paths they've taken - passing south of Johnston Island as hurricanes before crossing the dateline, thus becoming typhoons, then heading over Wake.  I admit I don't know whether Ioke passed directly over Wake - the other two did.

  Wake Island was an important stop for the Pan American China Clippers before World War II. It was a refueling stop for flights crossing the Pacific later, especially during the Korean and Vietnam Wars.  Bob Hope would conduct dress rehearsals for his USO shows on Wake before heading to Korea or Vietnam.  I quite literally almost ran into Raquel Welch, missing a collision by inches, sprinting to get a peak of Bob's show.

  It's a small place, but there are some of us with fond memories of it.  I met my wife there.

  by jpk on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 10:44:21 PM PDT

•  Wake is an atoll

  It is the remains of an active coral reef that sits barely above sea level - a huge mass of dead and some living coral.

  It may or not disappear as the land above sea level is very low and waves may simply pass over it without doing too much damage.  There is very little except for manmade structures and scrub that will be affected by wind.

  Wake was not regularly inhabited until the transpacific airlines like Pan American used it as a stopover.  It also had some military use and the Civil Aviation Agency (precursor to the FAA) maintained a tower and communications station.  Lack of water and arable land are the main reasons it was never really settled.  Today, only the Air Force has any personnel assigned there.

  I lived there as a child for one year when my father was posted with the CAA.

  by Ammo Hauler on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 10:47:14 PM PDT