There are two living areas on the island. One is the Japanese and the other the U.S. Coast Guard. The Japanese kept a weather station there. As far as being 15 ft above sea level, the island has been occupied off an on since World War II, maybe earlier. I’m not sure how it weathers storms, or if they just don’t go there. We put one C-130 and five OV-10’s on the island. We had to park the 130 and some of the OV’s on the runway. The takeoff roll for the OV was right at 4,300 ft. We rolled to the end of the runway and yanked it off the ground, and hoped they flew. The takeoff roll is usually shorter, but in order to fly the distance between island we were carrying two extra wing tanks. To get to Hawaii from Korea we had to go to Japan, Marcus, Wake, Midway, the Hawaii. To go back it was Hawaii, Johnson, Midway, Wake, Pohnpei, Guam, Ewo, Kadina, then Korea. One trip took 14 days!