Kiribati Inundated

I am regularly in touch with friends in the Kiribati Republic. I myself have experience of spring tides there. Huge breakers tower over the islands, crash onto the reef, then wash up to the top of the islands, where they sink into the sand. At the top, the water comes to a slow stop, and goes no further. My mother had nightmares over it as a missionary. But last night, Tarawa atoll experienced this (pictured). The ocean not only washed up to the top, but went much higher, so that people were up to their thighs in water.

POSTSCRIPT: At about the time I posted this, all of my contacts on all of the islands went dead. One by one they reappeared. Apparently it was caused by a combination of sea level rise, a spring tide, and a barometric pressure anomaly. Nonetheless it is a sign of things to come.