On a tiny slip of an island in the Atlantic Ocean — just a sandbar, really — a handful of people are preparing to weather a storm that, in satellite imagery, makes Sable Island look like a snowflake caught in a blizzard.

Three Parks Canada staff and one researcher will shelter in place on Sable Island, located about 300 kilometres southeast of Halifax, for the duration of Hurricane Fiona — laying low inside their lodgings to wait out a storm some have described as “a historic, extreme event.”

Much like mainland residents across the region, Parks Canada staff have been preparing for the storm