Mawar’s winds, rain lash Guam
Category 4 storm strongest to hit the U.S. territory since ’02
HAGATNA, Guam — Powerful Typhoon Mawar churned slowly over the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam today, lashing the island with wind and rain, tearing down trees, walls and power lines, flipping cars, and pushing dangerous storm surge ashore as first responders waited for daylight to see the full extent of the damage.
The typhoon, the strongest to hit the U.S. territory of roughly 150,000 people since 2002, briefly made landfall Wednesday night as a Category 4 storm at Andersen Air Force Base on the northern tip of the island, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Patrick Doll.
At what felt like its peak Wednesday night, the wind screeched and howled like jets flying overhead as rainwater rushed into some homes.
Videos posted on social media showed fallen trees, a flipped pickup, solar panels flying through the air, parts of a hotel’s exterior wall crumbling to the ground and exposing rebar, and storm surge and waves crashing through coastal reefs. The early scope of the damage was difficult to ascertain, with power and internet failures making communication with the distant island difficult.
J. Asprer, a police officer in the Dededo precinct in northern Guam, said before dawn today that he hadn’t received any reports of injuries, but that several police cars and personal vehicles had been damaged by debris.
“Tin roofs flying around all over the place,” he said, noting that uprooted trees had made some roads impassable.
Most of the calls overnight had been from worried people off-island who were unable to reach family members, Asprer said.
“We told them we’ll have to wait until the storm clears up a bit,” he said.
The slow-moving storm was battering the island early today with maximum sustained winds of 140 mph, and it was expected to intensify through Friday, the weather service said.
In a sign of how much help Guam might need, the U.S. Navy ordered the USS Nimitz aircraft carrier strike group to head to the island to assist in the recovery effort, according to a U.S. official. The Nimitz, along with the USS Bunker Hill, a cruiser, and the USS Wayne E. Meyer, a destroyer, were south of Japan headed to Guam, where they were expected to arrive in three or four days, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss ship movements not yet made public.
The weather service said the storm made landfall around 9 p.m. Wednesday in Guam, which is about 3,800 miles west of Hawaii and 1,600 miles east of Manila, the capital of the Philippines.
“It was on land for about 30 to 35 minutes before it moved back off shore,” Doll said by phone from the weather service’s office in Tiyan, Guam. “They lost their observation so we couldn’t see their wind speed.”
By early today, Mawar was centered 45 miles northwest of Guam and 65 miles west-southwest of Rota, Guam’s neighbor to the north, moving west-northwest at 6 mph.
Mawar has moved slower than many others that have moved through the region at upwards of 10 to 15 mph, weather service meteorologist Landon Aydlett said. Longrange forecasts place Mawar deep in the Philippine Sea, curving northward but staying northeast of the Philippines, he said, noting that it’s possible it could regain super typhoon status, with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph or greater.
Peak winds at the weather service’s Guam office reached 105 mph, but the office later lost its wind sensors, Aydlett said. The building was vibrating with a “constant, low rumbling,” and its doors and windows were shaking, he said.
“We have the peak conditions going on for a couple more hours. I think thrashing is the word I would use,” he said by phone overnight. “There are trees everywhere at this point. Daylight tomorrow is really going to be a shock to a lot of people.”
In Tumon, on the island’s northeastern shore, winds tore a granite countertop from a hotel’s outdoor bar and tossed it 4 feet in the air. Guests scrambled to stack chairs against hotel doors being blown in from the gusts as windows buckled and creaked.
Tinian and Saipan, in the Northern Marianas, were under tropical storm warnings. Some people in those areas have been living in temporary shelters or tents since Category 5 Super Typhoon Yutu in 2018.
Mawar, a Malaysian word that means “rose,” might threaten Taiwan next week.