Cyclone Pam hits Vanuatu

Cyclone Pam bears down on Vanuatu in this Nasa satellite image taken at 1.30pm local time on 13 March 2015. Not long after the image was acquired, the storm struck the island of Efate, home to Vanuatu's capital Port Vila, with winds of up to 250 kilometres an hour (155 mph)

Just when I thought I was getting a handle on the islands in the Pacific, here comes another one I've never heard of. You can just make out the outlines of the islands superimposed on the image of the storm. They are more visible in the larger original. Vanuatu is 3,600 miles southwest of Hawaii. Following the same line for another 1,100 miles will get you to Brisbane, Australia.
    The big bad wolf huffed and puffed and blew all the houses down. Looks like they could use some hurricane proof construction, but that requires at least a little bit of steel, and where do you get steel on a tropical island? You have to import it. Tourism, especially scuba divers, is picking up, so maybe they could add a one-pound-of-steel landing fee. That might give them enough to work with.