Guam ‘like a scene from Twister’ after powerful typhoon thrashes Pacific island

Residents and officials of Guam came out of their homes and shelters Thursday to survey the damage done in the US Pacific region after a long night of hunting down as Hurricane Rose tore up trees, vehicles and vehicles.

The central and northern parts of the island received more than 60 centimeters of rain as the eyewall, the heaviest part of the typhoon, passed through. Most of the rest of Guam received about 30 centimeters of rain during the storm, said Brandon Aydlett, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.

The island’s international airport was flooded, and swirling storms caused storm surges and waves to crash against coastal reefs.

“We are waking up to a rather disturbing scene out there across Guam. We are looking out our door and what used to be a forest looks like toothpicks – it looks like a scene from a movie. Twisterwith trees just down,” said Landon Aydlett, twin brother and fellow NWS meteorologist.

“Most of Guam has a big mess that’s going to take weeks to clean up,” he said.

The strongest typhoon to hit an area of ​​about 150,000 people since 2002, Mawar briefly made landfall around 9 p.m. local time Wednesday night as a Category 4 storm at Andersen Air Force Base on the island’s northern tip, weather service officials said.

“It was on land for about 30 to 35 minutes before it came back to shore,” said Patrick Doll, another NWS meteorologist.

‘Like a freight train’

As it crept slowly across the island, the typhoon sent solar panels flying and smashed parts of the hotel’s exterior wall to the ground, according to a video posted on social media. At what seemed like peak intensity, the wind screamed and screamed like a jet, and water flooded several houses.

Leah del Mundo spends the night with her family in a concrete house in Chalan Pago, in central Guam. He told The Associated Press that he tried to sleep, but woke up “to the shaking of the hurricane and the strong wind.”

“This isn’t our first rodeo,” he said via text message. “We’ve been through worse. But we’re prepared for cleanup, repair, restoration afterward.”

Buildings made of concrete in hurricane-prone Guam look good.

“If your house is not made of concrete, your life and property are in danger with a typhoon like this,” del Mundo said.

In Tumon, on the northeast coast of Guam, the wind tore a granite countertop from a hotel outdoor bar and threw it about a meter into the air. Guests piled chairs to prop up the door, and the windows buckled and creaked.

“It’s like a freight train running outside,” said Thomas Wooley, who recounted how the wind and rain pushed open the aluminum doors of his family’s concrete home overlooking Tumon Bay. At daybreak, he found the porcelain cabinet outside the room collapsed, its contents shattered on the ground. A chainsaw-wielding cousin helped clear downed branches.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Wooley said. “It will take a few days to clean up.”

Power, internet out

The extent of the damage was difficult to ascertain early on, as power and internet failures made communication with the remote island difficult.

Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and Lt. Gov. Josh Tenorio are assessing the situation after the island “received a typhoon last night,” emergency management officials said in a statement. They plan a driving tour to look for major damage or blocked roads.

J. Asprer, a police officer in Dededo precinct in northern Guam, said before dawn that he had not received reports of injuries, but noted that some police cars and private vehicles were damaged by debris and uprooted trees made some roads impassable. Most of the late-night calls came from worried people off the island who couldn’t reach family members.

“We told them we had to wait until the storm died down a bit,” he said.

Ray Leon Guerrero, an assistant in the mayor’s office in Barrigada who is not related to the governor, said the village of about 9,000 people in central Guam stayed in his office overnight and heard objects slamming into the roof and exterior walls continuously.

“Oh man. It’s pretty noisy,” he said.

Guam is about 6,115 kilometers west of Hawaii and 1,575 kilometers east of Manila, the capital of the Philippines.

Early Thursday, Mawar was centered about 12 kilometers northwest of Guam and 137 kilometers west of Rota, Guam’s neighbor to the north, moving west-northwest at 13 km/h.

The storm is expected to track mostly in the northwest through the big, empty of the sea for days, and could threaten Taiwan next week.