On the edge of the vast emptiness between North America and Russia, the remote Pribilof Islands -- the Galapagos of the North -- were among the possible targets for a brewing Arctic hurricane. National Weather Service officials in Alaska spent the day monitoring weather sensors as a pair of polar lows converged and began to gather strength south of St. Paul and St. George, the two biggest islands in the five-island chain some 200 miles offshore, about 750 miles west of Anchorage, Alaska's largest city.

Monday evening, the weather service posted a "hurricane force wind warning (for) Tuesday." Winds built overnight from less than 20 mph to 50 mph by Tuesday morning. Storm trackers forecast winds really intensifying, up to 65 knots -- 75 mph -- by Tuesday afternoon. That's into the Force 12 hurricane range on the Beaufort Wind Scale, which warns of structural damage with winds as low as Force 9 and notes Force 10 winds are of such force they are "seldom experienced on land. (Expect) trees broken or uprooted, considerable structural damage."

                   Seas as high as three-story buildings

If the winds weren't enough, the weather service warned that seas that batter the islands were likely to build to 32 feet -- higher than many three-story buildings. Imagine walking through an average American suburb where the waves rise higher than all the houses around you. The people of the Pribilofs were getting ready as best they could. Few live there.

Less than 450 people live in St. Paul, the largest community in the islands. Nearby St. George is home to but 102. Most are Alaska Natives who struggle to eke out a living from commercial fishing or tourism.

Tanadgusix Corp., a village business formed after the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act, opened a new hotel just six years ago on St. Paul to try to house tourists who come to the island from all over the world to view its unique collection of summer bird life. The windswept island is also home to a relatively new fish processing plant, but a lot of the 175 structures in St. Paul date back to shortly after World War II, when Aleuts who had been evacuated from the islands were returned from internment in Southeast Alaska to help the U.S. Bureau of Fisheries manage fur seals. St. Paul Island is also home to a Russian Orthodox church more than a century old. Sts. Peter and Paul Church was built in 1907 and added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1980.

Though the Pribilofs were shaping up as ground central for an Alaska version of The Perfect Storm, there were concerns about high winds and coastal flooding developing all over Western Alaska. A weather service map of the region was smeared with red warnings and yellow weather watches from Shemya and Adak in the Aleutian Islands chain, north, for more than 1,000 miles to the Seward Peninsula and beyond.