US residents hit by super typhoon hoping to get federal aid

Residents of a ravaged US Pacific Territory Super Typhoon Yutu are hopeful that the federal government will help them with the fight against the damage, including collapsed concrete houses, crushed cars and utility poles that have fallen to the ground. The before and after images of islands show widespread devastation.

About 50,000 people living in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands hope to stay without electricity or running water for months after being hit by the biggest storm in the United States this year.

Officials visited villages in Saipan and saw cars crushed under a collapsed garage, soil ravaged by vegetation and people injured by splashing glass and other debris. Friday, local time, a death related to a storm was confirmed.

A military plane was bringing food, water, tarpaulins and other supplies, said Federal Emergency Management Agency spokesman David Gervino.

The agency already had plenty of water and food because it had stored more than 220,000 liters of water and 260,000 stable meals in a distribution center near Guam to prepare for Typhoon Mangkhut, which hit last month.

The effects of Mangkhut have been less severe than expected, so these supplies are still available.

The agency is committed to helping restore power, open sea and air ports, and ensure that cell towers can run on standby power up to this point. that electricity be restored, said Gervino.

The agency adopted a change because of Hurricane Maria, a category 5 storm that hit Puerto Rico last year: it created working groups in various fields such as transportation, communications, food, water and energy.

Federal and territorial officials are in constant communication to address each of these areas, he said.

Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, Territorial Delegate to Congress, said that residents will need important help to recover. Congressional colleagues offered their help. The Sablan expects that a presidential declaration in case of disaster releases resources for emergency assistance.

"We want people to remember that we are Americans and we exist," said local legislator Edwin Propst.

Maximum sustained winds of 180 mph were recorded around the eye of the cyclone, which flew over the islands of Tinian and Saipan Thursday, the national meteorological service announced.

A 44-year-old woman who had taken refuge in an abandoned building died during the collapse of the building, according to the governor's office Facebook page. The officials could not be contacted immediately for more details.

The territory's only hospital in Saipan, the country's most populous island, said it received 133 people in the emergency room on Thursday and that three patients had suffered a serious injury requiring surgery.

The residents "were stoic and always smiling and they were just grateful to be alive," said Propst, a member of the House of Representatives of the territory.

Sablan said that most of the structures in southern Saipan had lost their roofs and that many of them, including a high school, had been "completely destroyed".

"The damage is just horrible, it will take us months and months to recover," he said by phone.

Even the plants were torn apart, he said: "There are no shrubs, they are all gone.There are no leaves."

On the smaller island of Tinian, hit hard, most homes were destroyed and even some concrete was reduced to ruins, said resident Juanita Mendiola.

"We had to hide in the bathroom because the house felt like it was falling apart," she said. "He was literally shaking – a concrete house was shaking."

The storm tore a door from its hinges and threw it more than a hundred yards into a pigsty, she said.

More than 800 people were in shelters across the territory, and the squares were exhausting, officials said. Electricity and running water were shut Wednesday, residents said. Mobile phone coverage was uneven.

Nadine Deleon Guerrero, spokeswoman for the territory's emergency management department, said all the Saipan Islands (50,000 inhabitants) and Tinian (3,000 inhabitants) were devoid of electrical energy.

The teams were still evaluating the time it would take to restore electricity, she said.

Commercial flights will not be operational for some time, she said. The terminals, tarmac, runway and equipment were all damaged.

Esther Lizama Muna, CEO of Commonwealth Healthcare Corp. Said that the Saipan Hospital was operating normally with backup generators, but that it was normally operating normally. She expects more patients to visit on Friday and fear she will run out of medical supplies.

"From my experience with previous typhoons, people tend to wait to take care of their health while they focus on their home and on others," he said. Muna. "We are therefore expecting more injuries."

A Tinian health center was damaged but functioning normally.

The island's emergency management agency said it was trying to clear the roads so that first responders could help residents who have lost their homes and allow people to seek treatment and care. to go to shelters.

"At its peak, it was as if many trains were running constantly," wrote Glen Hunter, a resident of Saipan, in a Facebook message. "At its peak, the wind was constant and the sound horrifying."

Hunter said that he was not expecting to have electricity for months, recalling that it had taken four months to restore electricity after Typhoon Soudelor's passage in 2015.

Recovery efforts on Saipan and Tinian will be slow, said Brandon Aydlett, Meteorologist at the National Weather Service.

"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."

The lawmaker, Propst, said he has lived through dozens of typhoons, but "this is the first time I feared for my life".

He, his wife, and their four children huddled together in a bedroom when the storm ripped the storm shutters off the windows of his concrete house, smashed a sliding glass door, and flooded the floor.

Some poor families can not afford houses that comply with building codes, said Propst. Some build houses with concrete foundations and walls, but with wooden and sheet metal roofs.

Amber Alberts said that she felt "like one of the luckiest" after surviving the storm in the kitchen of her apartment. "My place is fine, my car is fine," she said Friday, looking for ways to help.