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Super Typhoon Mawar hits Guam

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – The US Pacific territory of Guam was hit on Wednesday with Super Typhoon Mawar, the strongest storm to impact the area in decades, the Associated Press reports. US President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration that will mobilize aid to the territory.

Bringing high winds, heavy rains, and a dangerous storm surge, the center of the Category 4 typhoon passed over northern Guan at around 9 pm on Wednesday evening, local time, AP said. On typhoon alert, many of the territory’s 150,000 residents were ordered to take shelter on higher ground as low-lying areas were flooded. Many communities lost their electricity supply, and some lost their water service.

Many communities on the 212-square-mile (549-square-kilometer) island had lost power by afternoon, and some to the south had lost water service. A flash flood warning was issued for the entire island as forecasters predicted as much as 25 inches (64 centimeters) of rain in addition to a life-threatening storm surge of 4 to 6 feet (1.2 to 2 meters).

Rota, an island in the US Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, was also under a typhoon warning. At the same time, Tinian and Saipan, in the Northern Marianas, were under tropical storm warnings, AP said.

“This is going to be kind of a long night. It’s going to be scary because there’s no electricity unless you have a generator,” Brandon Aydlett, a science and operations officer for the National Weather Service, told Guam residents in a Facebook Live broadcast. “Reassure your children. It’s going to be a little bit scary as we go later into the night. You can hear the sounds: The winds are howling, things are breaking. Just be together, talk to each other and things will slow down toward midnight and continuing into Thursday morning,” Aydlett said.