The lodge is located in the beautiful U.S. Territory of American Samoa. American Samoa is located just 14° South of the Equator, and one time zone west of Hawaii, approximately the same distance from Hawaii as Hawaii is from California. A four to five hour flight.
Geographically American Samoa is part of the Samoan Islands Archipelago and constitutes the Eastern half of the island group. Made up of volcanic islands and a few atolls, American Samoa also contains what is considered one of the safest deep draft harbors in the South Pacific. Pago Pago Harbor was a much coveted safe harbor and coaling station during the 19th century as trans-Pacific shipping often needed a safe harbor from frequent tropical storms, resupply, and later on fuel.
American Samoa was admitted into the United States with the signing of the Deeds of Cession (Tutuila Island 1900 and Manu'a Islands 1904), and became a Naval Administered possession until the territory was transferred to the Department of Interior. Since the late 1970s American Samoa has elected their own governor, although a local legislature had been in existence since the late 1960s.
FEMA is switching from a disaster relief footing to a recovery footing in the coming week. The worst is so far over and people are still a bit twitchy. Yesterday a tsunami warning had most locals heading for the hills, literally. The warning was canceled about 20 minutes before the tsunami was supposed to hit American Samoa.
I have photos of the initial damage from the day of the tsunami on Flickr.
