Super Typhoon Yutu strikes Northern Mariana Islands

HONOLULU – Super Typhoon Yutu crossed the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands on Thursday, the equivalent of a Category 5 hurricane, making this the strongest storm ever recorded in the United States this year. announced the National Weather Service.

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, US Congressional delegate to the Commonwealth of Northern Mariana Islands, said the territory will need significant help to recover from the storm, which has injured several people.

In a phone interview with The Associated Press in Saipan, Sablan said he had heard of injuries and that people were waiting to be treated at the island hospital. He could not provide more details or an official estimate of the number of victims.

"There is a lot of damage and destruction," said Sablan. "It's as if a little war had just passed."

Sablan said that the entire island had suffered damage, but that some areas were worse than others. It has not been able to reach the authorities of the neighboring islands of Tinian and Rota, located on the territory, due to the lack of telephone and electricity.

"It will probably take weeks for electricity to be available again for everyone," he said.

Sablan says congressional colleagues have reached out to offer help. He expects that a declaration of presidential disaster will be put in place.

"We are surviving, we are going through this – we are a resilient people – but it's just huge," he said. "We need the prayers of America and help, and I have no doubt that we will get help.Thank you, America, for always being there for us."

Nearly 200 federal rescue workers were present in the Marianas, said Sablan.

Maximum sustained winds of 180 mph were recorded around the eye of the cyclone, which swept Tinian and Saipan early Thursday morning local time, said Brandon Aydlett, a meteorologist at the National Meteorological Service.

Tinian suffered a direct blow. Saipan and Tinian will be unrecognizable, Aydlett said, adding that the weather service had received reports that Yutu's catastrophic winds had ripped roofs off houses and destroyed windows.

"All debris becomes shrapnel and is deadly," he said.

Fallen trees could isolate people, and blackouts and electricity could last for weeks, the weather service warned.

"At its peak, the wind was constant and the sound terrifying," Glen Hunter wrote in a Facebook message to The Associated Press. Hunter lives on Saipan, the largest Commonwealth Island, US territory located approximately 3,800 km west of Hawaii.

"It's going to be a scene when the sun comes up," Hunter wrote to AP on Thursday morning.

It was still dark when he peeked out and saw his neighbor's house, made of wood and tin, completely gone. A palm tree has been uprooted.

Hunter, 45, has lived in Saipan since childhood and is used to heavy storms. "We are in the typhoon alley," he wrote, adding that it was the worst he had known.

The previous afternoon, electricity was cut off and Hunter was prepared for months without electricity or running water. All government offices and schools were closed two days ago. Some gas stations ran out of fuel Tuesday night, he said.

"We knew it was going to be big," he said, "but wow."

The roof flew from the second floor of Del Benson's house to Saipan.

"We have not slept much," he wrote to the AP in a Facebook message. "I climbed up the stairs and the skylight was destroyed, then the roof started to disappear, we sent the children down."

The recovery efforts on Saipan and Tinian will be slow, said Aydlett. "It's the worst case scenario, which is why building codes in the Mariana Islands are so severe," he said. "It will be the storm that will define the scale at which future storms will be compared."

Six of the 10 shelters in Saipan were full, he wrote, and Tinian's shelter was full.

All ports have been closed and flights to Northern Mariana Islands have been canceled, he wrote.

"The Tinian Medical Center was badly damaged, but fortunately no patient was present," he wrote in a message saying that the Commonwealth Health Center and Rota Medical Center were operating at the generator.

Sablan tweeted later in the day. The mobile and fixed telephony service was irregular in Saipan.

Dean Sensui, Vice President for Hawaii of the Western Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Board, was in Saipan for a council meeting. He squatted in his hotel room, where he was asked to stay indoors because the winds were still strong on Thursday morning.

"By midnight, we could hear the wind," he said in a Facebook message. "In the restaurant, it sounded like a Hollywood soundtrack with intense rain and howling wind."

Because it's in a solid hotel, it was not as scary as living with Hurricane Iniki in 1992, which left the island of Kauai, Hawaii, badly damaged , did he declare. "The fact that we still have access to the Internet shows how strong their infrastructure is," he said. "Hawaii and others should study the Marianas to understand how to design and build communication grids that can withstand a storm."

The Northern Marianas have a population of about 55,000.

Waves of 25 to 40 feet were expected around the storm and floods are likely, forecasters said.

A typhoon warning was in effect for Saipan, Tinian and Rota. A tropical storm warning was in place for Guam and other southern islands.