Super Typhoon devastates US territory
Residents of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands were bracing for months without electricity or running water in the aftermath of the strongest storm to hit any part of the U.S. this year. Super Typhoon Yutu crossed over the U.S. territory early Thursday local time.
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, the commonwealth’s delegate to U.S. Congress, said the territory will need significant help to recover from the storm, which he said injured several people. Sablan said he has heard reports of injuries and that people are waiting at the island’s hospital to be treated. He could not provide further details. “There’s a lot of damage and destruction,” Sablan said. “It’s like a small war just passed through.”
Sablan said the entire island sustained damage, but there are areas that are worse than others. “It’s going to take weeks probably to get electricity back to everybody,” he said. Sablan says colleagues in Congress have reached out to offer help. He expects there will be a presidential disaster declaration put in place.
As the storm continues to move away from the Mariana Islands, Sablan said in a tweet Thursday evening that the typhoon warning for Saipan and Tinian was cancelled. The electricity on Saipan, the largest island in the commonwealth about 3,800 miles (6,115 kilometers) west of Hawaii, went out at 4 p.m. Wednesday, resident Glen Hunter said. “We probably won’t have power for months,” he said.
Maximum sustained winds of 180 mph (290 kph) were recorded around the eye of the storm, which passed over Tinian and Saipan early Thursday, said Brandon Aydlett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries. Tinian suffered a direct hit. Saipan and Tinian will be unrecognizable, Aydlett said, adding that the weather service received reports that Yutu’s catastrophic winds ripped roofs and blew out windows. Recovery efforts on Saipan and Tinian will be slow, Aydlett said. “This is the worst-case scenario. This is why the building codes in the Marianas are tough. This is going to be the storm which sets the scale for which future storms are compared to.”