The US Pacific island of Guam suffered overnight from Wednesday into Thursday the “destructive” gusts of Typhoon Mawar, which also caused flooding and widespread power outages.
The employee of a hotel on the coast described by telephone by AFP “the windows fly to pieces, the wind howls, the trees broke the net”.
“The lobby is flooded with 30 centimeters of water,” added Casey, who works at the Dusit Thani Guam Resort, the property that operates with a backup generator.
AFP
“I feel the walls shaking. The wind is very strong, I can hear it whistling through the cracks in the doors.”
While local residents are used to storms, “tourists are panicking about flooding in rooms caused by water pouring through broken windows,” she said.
The most vulnerable population groups have sought shelter in refuges at the request of the authorities.
The typhoon, category 4 on a scale of 5, passed north of the island on Wednesday evening and was expected to lose strength during the day on Thursday.
AFP
But destructive gusts continued into the night, according to the US National Weather Service. Winds blowing up to 225 km/h were recorded.
Lou Leon Guerrero, the governor of the island of 170,000 people, which lies about 2,400 kilometers from the Philippine archipelago, had earlier urged residents to “seek shelter immediately”.
“I’m in a reinforced concrete house and my shutters are closed. I went out briefly but the wind is blowing with intermittent rain,” Beckie Merrill, a 46-year-old teacher who took refuge in the south of the island, told AFP.
“I worry about the safety of our people. This is the most powerful storm in 20 years,” Governor Guerrero warned.
The US Weather Service had warned of the “triple threat” of torrential rain, damaging winds and potentially deadly storm surges (rises in sea levels).
The arrival of the typhoon raised fears of coastal submersion phenomena also potentially fatal in Rota, another US island in the Mariana Islands archipelago.
The Guam Power Authority, the electricity distribution company on the island, warned that it would wait for a decrease in wind intensity to begin operations to restore power for safety reasons.
Only a thousand homes, out of a total of 52,000, were still supplied with electricity, the company said.
Nearly 22,000 US service members and their families are based on Guam, an island that sees long-range bombers and nuclear attack submarines.
The island is also home to the United States’ large fuel and ammunition reserves in the Pacific. The tourism industry is important there.
At the Hyatt Regency Guam, guests weathered the typhoon with philosophy. They were waiting in the lobby, Ryan Rodillon, an employee of the establishment, explained to AFP.
“Many rooms are flooded, not because of broken windows, but because water is seeping in through the balconies,” he said.
About 60 flights departing from or arriving in Guam scheduled between Tuesday and Thursday have been canceled, AB Won Pat International Airport said.
