The extreme typhoon category 5, the worst American storm since 1935, devastated the Northern Mariana Islands

Chris Mooney

Journalist on Climate Change, Energy and the Environment

Oct. 25 at 05:09

The Super Typhoon Yutu unleashed on Thursday in the Commonwealth Northern Mariana Islands, leaving the storm behind

Tied to the strongest storm in the world this year, Yutu blew sustained winds of 180 mph and her gigantic eye wrapped much of Saipan and everything Tinian, Leaving the Region The Pacific Islands have been "mutilated," as one local official at the Washington Post described. Rescue and relief operations have begun, but officials say their efforts are hampered by still-dangerous weather and mbadive destruction.

"We have just experienced one of the worst storms I have ever experienced in emergency management," according to a statement by Commonwealth emergency management officials, known as CNMI.

According to figures published by the Weather Underground, Yutu was in fifth place tied with the highest wind speed. storm recorded when hitting the ground. Only a few storms, such as the Super Typhoon Haiyan (which hit the Philippines) in 2013, were stronger, let alone a lot. For the United States, a single storm – the 1935 Labor Day hurricane that hit the Florida Keys – would have been even stronger.

The Northern Mariana Islands are another US territory that has been hit by a violent hurricane in the past. two years. The US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico suffered disastrous strikes during the 2017 hurricane season, and typhoon Mangkhut recently hit Guam.

Overall, the increasing impacts on US island territories in the Pacific and Caribbean just underscore this, as the sea rises and storms worsen with climate change, small islands face some of the most extreme risks on the planet. Many have organized themselves into the Alliance of Small Island States to lobby for strong action against climate change. Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa are affiliated with this organization as observers.

The images of the post-storm in the Mariana Islands were horrible. In Saipan, roads were littered with electric poles and tree branches. The parked cars were broken by debris, some overturned even by the strong winds. What was once buildings was reduced to random stacks of tin and wood. If it's not made of concrete, it's probably gone, said Jose Mafnas, a resident of Saipan whose roof was ripped from his house.

"We heard the flight of tin. He was undressed, "said the 29-year-old lawyer during a phone interview, describing the moment when Yutu took his roof. "The water was coming in through the wooden ceiling, and then finally the whole ceiling collapsed to the ground."

He added, "My house and the houses of my neighbors are at Almost destroyed … There are only sheet metal roofs

The National Weather Service in Guam warned residents that the winds would be so strong that "most houses would suffer significant damage that could total roof failure and collapse of walls .Most industrial buildings would be destroyed. "

Yet, Mafnas said that he was" short of words "when he saw for the first time the damage caused by Yutu on his island.

"I knew the damage would be significant, but coming out in the morning, even with this knowledge, I was still surprised at how devastating it was," he said.

Debris at the edge of a road in Saipan after the Super Typhoon Yutu. (Photo courtesy of Jose Mafnas)

Frank Camacho, Saipan photographer, Guam, about 135 miles to the south, when The Storm hit, stayed in touch with family and friends via WhatsApp and told The Post what they were living in.

"Mbadive flooding in homes, roofs were destroyed , shutters were projected, concrete buildings, buildings razed and The storm still strikes between 70 and 100 km / h, "said Camacho in an email at dawn on October 25, local time on the islands (The islands are 14 hours ahead of the Eastern Time.) "My sister just lost e all his house in Saipan … [People] hidden in their toilets while the eye pbaded over the islands. "

Nadine Deleon Guerrero, head of external relations at CNMI's Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, has not yet taken all the measures of the scale of the damage. a telephone interview.Preliminary badessments can not be carried out until the weather conditions improve, but based on "windshield badessments", said Guerrero. Yutu are "five times more serious" than those caused by Typhoon Soudelor, which hit the islands in 2015. Soudelor was the most powerful cyclone during the 2015 Pacific typhoon season. In general, the Pacific Northwest , where tropical cyclones are called typhoons (and not hurricanes), experiencing the most numerous and violent storms on the planet.

"It's so bad, it's" the worst storm that I've never seen it. "

Nola Hix, another resident of Saipan, told The Post via a WhatsApp message that she had lived in Soudelor and that she had "prayed that we would never come back [that]. "Unfortunately, Yutu was Soudelor" x 20 years old, she writes.

"We are all grateful to God for being alive," Hix wrote, adding that the homes of his brother and mother had been destroyed. "It was very scary. I had never heard of such wind and rain, and it lasted a long time. "

On the neighboring island of Tinian, conditions were also dark.

" Tinian was devastated by Typhoon Yutu ", Mayor Joey. San Nicolas said in a video posted on Facebook "Many houses have been destroyed, our critical infrastructure has been compromised, we currently have no electricity or water at present."

The US Army Corps of Engineers stated that He had had "Generators were installed in advance for Yutu in nearby places: 77 generators in Guam, 1 in a Rota hospital and 85 others in Hawaii."

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, whose department is responsible for US territories, recently visited the Mariana Islands as part of a larger trip to the Pacific. During the trip, according to the Pacific Daily News, Zinke said about climate change: "If it's a priority in the Pacific, then that also becomes our priority."

Zinke did not issue an official statement Wednesday about the storm, but tweeted: "After the typhoon, my friend Governor Torres and the Northern Mariana people. @POTUS issued a disaster statement to facilitate relief and recovery. "

The Northern Mariana Islands, which the United States has taken from Japan 52,000 people, the majority of whom are US citizens or US nationals, live on Tinian Island, in the center of the storm, from which B-29 missions launched atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Des Nagasaki were launched, forcing Japan to surrender.

The Northern Mariana Islands were home to dozens of garment factories, in part because the territory was exempt from federal minimum wage requirements and quotas and tariffs on textile imports from the United States. United. The industry collapsed ten years ago, after the expiry of tariffs and quotas and the adoption by Congress of a law raising the minimum wage on the islands. The value of its textile exports to the United States increased from $ 1.1 billion in 1998 to "almost zero in 2010," according to a 2017 report by the Government Accountability Office, while activities have moved elsewhere in the United States. Asia.

The territory was largely dependent on foreign workers. Tourism is a major pillar of the local economy and a relatively new casino in Saipan has resulted in considerable construction in recent years.

While the Mariana Archipelago consists of 15 separate islands, approximately 90% of the territory's residents live in Saipan, which has been severely affected by Yutu. About 6% of the population lives on Tinian Island, which was most directly affected

The extreme strike went off without warning, the storm being reinforced from category 1 to category 5 on a day only before landing. Maximum sustained wind speed increased by 80 mph during this period, resulting in a storm with gusts above 200 mph.

Scientists have recently suggested that such "rapid intensification" events, also occurring with hurricanes Michael and Florence, may become more frequent as the planet warms up and the oceans warm up, providing additional fuel to storms.

This false-color satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) shows when the eye of super Typhoon Yutu is over Tinian, one of the three main islands of the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands. the United States. (NOAA via AP)