It is with a heavy heart that I write this.<\/p>\n
My wife Erica and I have been off island for three weeks and are now stuck in Narita, Japan, waiting for our airport to open so we can fly home.<\/p>\n
The pictures are horrifying. I do not recognize our island. So many are now homeless. I heard 300 power poles are down. I have never heard of a power pole going down on Saipan due to a storm.<\/p>\n
According to some news sources, Soudelor is working its way to becoming the strongest storm this year so far.<\/p>\n
Back home, people are weary, many have lost homes and our island is beaten and battered.<\/p>\n
It is during these times that the character of each one of us will show. It is the time for us all to come together.<\/p>\n
Erica and I know in our hearts that our island and our people will recover and thrive again, but it will take time and effort.<\/p>\n
If you have a home, take others in. If you have food, share it with others, but most importantly, be strong and face this menace together, and we will overcome!<\/p>\n
To our young men and women, this is the opportunity to show your talents and skills by helping our island recover in whatever way you can. Every little effort will help.<\/p>\n
May God bless our island home Saipan!<\/p>\n
Tom Thornburgh <\/strong> It is with a heavy heart that I write this. My wife Erica and I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[42,170,67,50],"class_list":["post-206967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters-to-the-editor","tag-food","tag-japan","tag-people","tag-power"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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