Lance Cpl. Gage Baird, 23, walks out of the commissary with groceries at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Thursday, Aug. 29, 2024. (Jonathan Snyder/Stars and Stripes)
MARINE CORPS AIR STATION IWAKUNI, Japan — U.S. Navy and Marine Corps bases in the path of a punishing typhoon tracking across southern Japan secured ships and planes and stocked up on peanut butter Thursday.
Typhoon Shanshan passed south of Sasebo Naval Base as it stormed across Kyushu, the southernmost of Japan’s four main islands, and continued slowly northward, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Shanshan at its strongest packed maximum sustained winds of nearly 90 mph with gusts over 100 mph, but by 12:30 p.m. Thursday had weakened to a Category 1-equivalent storm, according to the center.
It was moving at 7 mph, about twice as fast as the average person walks, the center said.
Thanks to two weak weather systems steering the typhoon, its path is difficult to predict, according to the center’s update at noon Thursday. “The system has the potential to move erratically during a quasi-stationary period with possible loops and backtracking,” the update stated.
Nearly 20 inches of rain fell on Kyushu between Wednesday and Thursday, The Associated Press reported. That triggered a landslide that killed one person and injured several others.
At Sasebo — homeport of the America Amphibious Ready Group about 30 miles north of Nagasaki — all nonessential operations shut down as of noon and all ships were secured in the harbor, said a base spokesman.
“It is being advertised as a very serious, strong storm and, of course, Sasebo is known to be a very safe harbor protected from storm effects, and so we are hoping that this is the case this time around,” spokesman Aki Nichols told Stars and Stripes by phone Thursday. “But we are taking all the precautions we normal do.”
Ships were secured by doubling and tripling storm lines and positioning them in the safest locations on berth assignments, he said.
Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, 22 miles southwest of Hiroshima and next in the storm’s path, moved into Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness 2 on Thursday afternoon, meaning it expected winds of 57 mph or higher within 24 hours.
Navy spouse Sarah Kovalevich, like many others, was at MCAS Iwakuni’s commissary Thursday, stocking up on milk, eggs, bread, peanut butter and jelly ahead of the storm.
“I’ll be totally honest, I was kind of like, it’s not going to be that big of a deal, and then I saw more people posting it’s going to be one of the biggest ones,” she said.
The commissary was well stocked with milk and eggs but the shelf for sandwich bread was empty.
“I got yen out to go out to the Japanese grocery stores just in case they didn’t have stuff here,” Kovalevich said.
Shanshan is expected to pass 62 miles south-southeast of Iwakuni around 4 p.m. Friday as a tropical storm, still packing 46 mph sustained winds and 58 mph gusts at its center, according to the Joint Typhoon Warning Center.
MCAS Iwakuni is closely monitoring Shanshan’s progress, base spokesman 2nd Lt. Justin Weinstein told Stars and Stripes by email Thursday.
“The air station is taking standard typhoon precautions in securing aircraft and equipment and adjusting the schedules of on-base services,” he said.
Information on the typhoon’s strength, preparedness measures and shelter locations on and off base are available via internal communications and the MCAS Iwakuni social media channels, Weinstein added.
The base on its official Facebook page Wednesday advised residents on- and off-base to secure outside items and encouraged anyone living in flood-prone areas to use the on-base evacuation shelter.
Dozens of domestic flights connecting southwestern cities and islands will be canceled through Friday. Japan Railway suspended bullet trains and local train services Thursday on Kyushu. Similar steps may be taken on the main island of Honshu through Sunday, according to the AP.
Keep an eye on Stars and Stripes’ Pacific Storm Tracker for frequent Shanshan updates.
Stars and Stripes reporter Dave Ornauer contributed to this report.
