Chief Petty Officer Marsha Delaney said the five crew members and seven contractors were apparently hired by the Air Force to do repair work on the island. They were on a ship nearby yesterday when the hurricane moved into the area.

Today, the Coast Guard flew a C-130 plane over the island and dropped radios. The antenna on the group's ship had come down during the storm, cutting off communication.

"The master (of the ship) reported that the vessel is fine, everybody is fine and that they're making arrangements to leave Johnston Island some time today and head back to Oahu," she said.

Those arrangements include moving everything they took to the bunker back to their ship and double checking the vessel to make sure it is OK, Delaney said.

Two Coast Guard boats that were being dispatched to the island in case the group's vessel was damaged have been called off and will likely be sent home, she said.

The group took shelter in a bunker designed to withstand a category four hurricane on the island.

Winds in the category two Hurricane Ioke were near 105 miles per hour with higher gusts Wednesday as it slowly moved away to the northwest of the island, according to the weather service's Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu.

At 11 a.m. today, Ioke was centered about 130 miles northwest of the island, or about 890 miles west-southwest of Honolulu.

Johnston Island, which is part of part of the isolated Johnston Atoll, is uninhabited. It is under the primary jurisdiction and control of the U.S. Air Force. But the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has a national wildlife refuge there.

The atoll has been used by the U.S. military for weapons tests and as the site of a chemical weapons disposal plant. During the 1950s, nuclear warheads were detonated high above the islands. The chemical disposal unit was shut down and its military personnel removed in June 2004, according to the Web site of the Air Force's 15th Airlift Wing.