Former Saipan resident and now Rota businessman Juan Pan Guerrero and his family stayed calm as the outer bands of a slightly weaker-but-still powerful Typhoon Mawar brought heavy rain and strong winds to the southernmost chain of the CNMI at past noon yesterday.<\/p>\n
Rota Mayor Aubry Hocog said at around 7pm last night that her team is already preparing a post-assessment of the effects of Typhoon Mawar once conditions improve on the island.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just playing things by ear. Winds are really picking up. We were told during our briefing that the winds will start diminishing around midnight. So we are going to start prepping our post plan once we have some light.\u201d<\/p>\n
Guerrero, who owns the general store Island A-Heart Retail, said the electrical power went out at their Sinapalo neighborhood around 1:40pm and internet service had been cut as well. About 20 minutes after the power went out was when the fury of Mawar started to be felt on Rota, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround 2:30pm wind forces\/velocity had tripled in the last 30 minutes. \u2026Strong winds and raining now. \u2026People are resilient and already know not to take chances during natural disasters,\u201d he told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
Guerrero, who, like other businesses on island, closed his store on the eve of Mawar\u2019s arrival, said the government did a great job with the early typhoon declaration and opening shelters on Rota.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo the governor and business people, please help us and send assistance.\u00a0We need transportation to bring shipments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
As for his message to family and friends on Saipan, Guerrero said his family on Rota is okay, but admitted that going through what was initially declared a super typhoon is a scary thing. From being a 155-mph Category 5 typhoon, Mawar has weakened slightly to 140 mph and is now categorized as a Category 4 typhoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo family, friends, and foes, thank you for your prayers and warnings to be safe. \u2026We are safe and secure here in Sinapalo,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
For Jacqueline Manglona, who owns the Pizzaria Bar & Grill in Sinapalo, she said her family made the necessary preparations for the coming of Mawar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have prepared with the necessities. We closed the restaurant yesterday around 3pm due to inclement weather so that our staff could go home and prepare themselves and we will remain closed until the weather permits,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Despite their readiness, though, Manglona admitted nothing really prepares you for a Category 4 typhoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe winds have picked up the past hour. We are holding in there and bracing for the worst,\u201d she told Saipan Tribune.<\/p>\n
Bong Opiniano said the rain and wind have steadily picked up right after 1pm. He said they\u2019re fortunate to have enough provisions of food and water at their household as they get ready to hunker down until Mawar passes the CNMI\u2019s area of responsibility.<\/p>\n
Nelia L. Samaniego, who works at Islander Rent A Car, said the wind and the rain started to pick up 5:50pm yesterday.<\/p>\n
Before calling it a day yesterday, the rental company secured all the vehicles in their parking facility. Samaniego is hoping that flights return today.<\/p>\n
Asked if Typhoon Mawar is as powerful as Typhoon Mangkhut back in 2015, the Songsong resident said the latter was definitely scarier.<\/p>\n
The former Saipan resident said that, unlike Mangkhut, no electric posts have fallen in the wake of Mawar.<\/p>\n
Guerrero, meanwhile, provided a quick update on the typhoon at a little past 6pm.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are getting pounded now. We just lost a coconut tree,\u201d he said, adding the radar images of Mawar shows the hurler\u2019s eye encompassing the whole area of Guam and Rota.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re just getting started here. \u2026Rota will be pounded. \u2026The eye is so big that it covers both Guam and Rota,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Preparing for post-assessment<\/strong><\/p>\n Hocog said the first inspection they will do is to check on Rota\u2019s port of entries so supplies can readily be brought to the island.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst we\u2019re going to go and do our post-assessment at the port of entries\u2014the airport, seaport, and east and west marina\u2014to make sure that there are no obstructions to the road access.\u201d<\/p>\n Next up, she said, are the rest of the infrastructure on island, which includes the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. power plant.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re going to be in contact with CUC and then have them do their assessment because we are experiencing an islandwide power outage right now. All the shelters, the command center, and the hospitals are all running on generators. So we\u2019re tracking this and hopefully with our assessment, our teams can go out and start, I guess, addressing the issues and rectifying what are causing the outages, and so they can bring back the engines and start running the feeders again to supply [power] to the villages of Rota,\u201d said Hocog.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Saipan resident and now Rota businessman Juan Pan Guerrero and his family stayed calm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":392424,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-392423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392423","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\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}