HONOLULU (AP) – Authorities in Guam warned anyone not living in a fully concrete house to head to safety elsewhere, and emergency shelters began to fill as residents braced for Typhoon Mawar, a powerful storm that could deliver the biggest hit in two decades to the United States (US) territory in the Pacific.
Governor Lou Leon Guerrero urged residents in a YouTube message to remain calm and prepare for Mawar, which the National Weather Service said could hit southern Guam around midday today.
She ordered the National Guard to help those in low-lying areas evacuate ahead of the storm as residents stocked up on jugs of water and generators. If Guam doesn’t take a direct hit, it will be very close, said the lead meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Tiyan, Guam Patrick Doll.
“Current forecasts are not favourable to our island,” she said. “We are at the crosshairs of Typhoon Mawar. Take action now, stay calm, stay informed and stay safe.”
The storm was intensifying as it approached Guam, and the weather service warned of a “triple threat” of winds, torrential rains and life-threatening storm surge. The centre of the Category 4 storm, with sustained winds of 209 kilometres per hour (kph) was about 300 kilometres southeast of Guam yesterday and was “wobbling” to the north-northwest at 13kph, according to the weather service.
Winds could reach as high as 240kph, Guerrero said in her video message. And Doll said the typhoon could cause “extensive damage”.
The governor said that she placed Guam essentially in a lockdown effective 1pm yesterday and that those in low-lying areas needed to leave by 6pm.
A storm surge of two to three metres above the normal high tide was expected and could reach as high as four-and-a-half metres. Surf was expected to build sharply in the next day or two along south- and east-facing reefs, with dangerous surf of six to seven and a half metres) yesterday into today, the weather service said.
At the island’s grocery and hardware stores on Monday, people left with shopping carts full of canned goods, cases of water and generators, the Pacific Daily News reported. The Reverend Francis X Hezel, a priest and assistant pastor at Santa Barbara Church in Dededo, was trying to visit people at the hospital before it closed to visitors yesterday.
