The American island of Guam in the Pacific suffered from the “destructive” gusts of Typhoon Mawar on Wednesday night, which also led to flooding and widespread power outages.
A staff member at a seaside hotel called by AFP described “the windows shattered, the wind howling, the trees shattered.”
“The lobby is flooded with 30 centimeters of water,” added Casey, who works at Dusit Thani Guam Resort, the property that runs on a backup generator.
“I can 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 fear panic over indoor flooding caused by water leaking through shattered windows,” she said.
The most vulnerable populations have taken refuge in shelters at the request of the authorities.
The category 4 on a scale of 5 typhoon passed north of the island on Wednesday evening and was expected to weaken during the day on Thursday.
However, according to the US National Weather Service, the destructive gusts continued into the night. Wind speeds of up to 225 km/h were registered.
Lou Leon Guerrero, the governor of the island of 170,000, about 2,400 kilometers from the Philippine archipelago, had previously urged the residents to “seek immediate shelter”.
“I’m in a reinforced concrete house and my shutters are closed. I went out briefly but the wind is gusting and it’s raining intermittently,” Beckie Merrill, a 46-year-old teacher who found refuge in the south of the island, told AFP.
“I’m concerned for the safety of our people. “This is the strongest storm in the last 20 years,” warned Governor Guerrero.
The US weather service had warned of the “triple threat” of torrential rain, damaging winds and potentially deadly storm surges (sea level rise).
The typhoon’s arrival raised fears that coastal flooding could also potentially kill Rota, another American island in the Mariana Archipelago.
The Guam Power Authority, the power distribution company on the island, warned that it would wait until wind intensity dropped before restoring power for safety reasons.
The company said only a thousand households out of a total of 52,000 were still supplied with electricity.
Nearly 22,000 US soldiers and their families are stationed on Guam, an island home to long-range bombers and nuclear submarines.
The island is also home to the United States’ largest 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, explained AFP Ryan Rodillon, an employee of the establishment.
“Many rooms are flooded, not because of broken windows but because of water seeping in from the balconies,” he said.
About 60 flights that departed from or arrived in Guam between Tuesday and Thursday were canceled, AB Won Pat International Airport said.