(Honolulu) Residents of Guam, an island in the Philippine Sea, stocked up on supplies, boarded up windows and abandoned wood and tin houses for emergency shelters as Super Typhoon Mawar approaches , the strongest storm to hit this US Pacific territory in decades.
The US military has repatriated ships, President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration and anyone not living in a concrete house has been told to seek safety elsewhere before Mawar approaches, which could arrive under the form of a category 5 monster storm.
Guam Governor Lou Leon Guerrero claimed on social media that the emergency declaration would support resource mobilization in Guam, which is “particularly critical given its distance from the continental United States.” Mr Guerrero ordered residents of coastal, low-lying and flood-prone areas of the territory of more than 150,000 people to evacuate to higher altitudes.
Federal assistance will be needed to save lives and property and “mitigate the effects of this impending disaster,” the governor said in a letter to the president.
Guam is a crucial hub for US forces in the Pacific, and the Department of Defense controls about a third of the island. Naval Base Guam has been monitoring the storm for the past week and preparing for it, including sending ships away from the island, a standard precaution, base spokeswoman Valerie Maigue told the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.
With rain from the storm’s outer bands already falling across the territory, the National Weather Service said the storm had been upgraded to a Category 4 “super typhoon,” meaning maximum sustained winds of 150 miles per hour or 150 miles per hour. more. Its center was about 225 kilometers southeast of Guam late Tuesday local time and moving north-northwest, according to the weather service.
The service said the storm was intensifying and warned of a “triple threat” of winds, torrential rains and potentially deadly storm surges over Guam.
The Weather Service said the storm could hit southern Guam around noon Wednesday, which is Tuesday evening for the continental United States. Guam lies west of the International Date Line and is one day ahead of the mainland and Hawaii.
If Guam isn’t directly affected, it will be lightly touched, said Patrick Doll, the weather service’s chief meteorologist in Tiyan, Guam.
In a YouTube message, Guerrero urged residents to remain calm and ordered the National Guard to help those in low-lying areas to evacuate, while residents stocked up on water and generators.
“We are in the line of sight of the typhoon mawar, did he declare. We must act now, remain calm, inform ourselves and protect ourselves. »
Rear Admiral Benjamin Nicholson, commander of the Joint Mariana Region, authorized the evacuation of defense personnel, dependents and employees to areas expected to be affected by the storm.
A storm surge of 2-3 meters above normal high tide is expected and could reach 4.5 meters. Waves are expected to intensify sharply over the next two days along the south and east facing reefs, with dangerous waves of 6 to 7.5 meters through Wednesday, according to the weather service.
The storm is only moving at 8 kilometers per hour, but its eye is 27 kilometers wide, which means people in the center of the typhoon could see calm conditions for more than three hours and conclude, far too soon. , that the worst is over, Mr. Doll said. When the eye passes, winds could reach 240 kilometers per hour within minutes, so people should stay sheltered until the government gives the green light, he added.
At grocery and hardware stores across the island, people left on Monday with baskets full of canned goods, cases of water and generators, the Pacific Daily News reported.
Rota, an island in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, was also under a typhoon alert, Doll said. Tinian and Saipan in the Northern Marianas were placed on tropical storm alert.
Some people in these areas are still in temporary shelters or tents after the Category 5 super typhoon Yutu in 2018, Doll noted.
“Guam is hit by a category 4 or 5 typhoon every five to seven years. Mother Nature has spared us lately, said Mr Doll, adding that the last direct attack was in 2002. So we are way behind. »
The typhoon season runs from 1er July to December 15 in the western North Pacific, according to weather services.