{"id":392504,"date":"2023-05-26T06:04:07","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T20:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=392504"},"modified":"2023-05-26T06:04:07","modified_gmt":"2023-05-25T20:04:07","slug":"all-clear-declared-for-entire-nmi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/all-clear-declared-for-entire-nmi\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018All clear\u2019 declared for entire NMI"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Gov. Arnold I. Palacios, left, accompanied by CNMI Homeland Security Emergency Management agency\u2019s Joey Dela Cruz hold a press briefing to announce the cancellation of tropical storm conditions for Saipan and Tinian.\u00a0(KIMBERLY B. ESMORES)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Several hours after Typhoon Mawar barreled through the Rota channel on its way outside the Marianas region, Gov. Arnold I. Palacios finally gave the \u201call clear\u201d signal yesterday for all three islands of Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.<\/p>\n

After an initial assessment of the typhoon damage and with guidance from the National Weather Service in Guam, Palacios called off all tropical storm and typhoon conditions for Saipan, Tinian, and Rota and declared an \u201call clear\u201d for all three islands, paving the way for recovery efforts to begin, especially with bringing needed equipment to Rota, which was most affected by the storm.<\/p>\n

After a briefing yesterday by the National Weather Service at the CNMI Homeland Security and Emergency Management headquarters on Capital Hill, Palacios cancelled all conditions for Saipan, Tinian and Rota as of 5:30pm press time.<\/p>\n

At around 5:30pm yesterday evening, only Saipan and Tinian had received an \u201call clear\u201d declaration. Later, at around 8:20pm, Palacios officially issued an \u201call clear\u201d for Rota.<\/p>\n

Palacios disclosed in a separate press briefing yesterday that both Saipan and Tinian sustained no damage, aside from debris but those that have been reported were minor and have been cleared.<\/p>\n

On Tinian, Palacios said the administration received a report that a power line was downed by the storm but it has since been fixed by the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. on island.<\/p>\n

As for Rota, Palacios said because they bore the brunt of the storm among all three islands, they continue to do assessments and are expected to provide a report today. The consolidated report will provide the administration with a clear picture of what is needed to aid in Rota\u2019s recovery post-Typhoon Mawar.<\/p>\n

\u201cA consolidated team made up of government personnel will carefully go out and make sure that the roads are clear and to look at what aid is necessary as a result of Mawar,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Palacios said that power remains down on Rota and will remain down until equipment and manpower needed can be transported from Saipan to Rota.<\/p>\n

\u201cPhotos provided to us showed a power pole had fallen across a road on Rota and those have to be cleared and addressed. Power remains down on Rota, but the power plant is OK. There was moisture in one of the engines, so they had to shut it down that\u2019s why power is still out. There are a lot of lines down and the distribution system needs to be fixed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPending availability of transport, we\u2019re working with the [Federal Emergency Management Agency] and the U.S. Department of Defense to transport equipment down to Rota for CUC, as well as generators for major infrastructures like the hospital. We\u2019re just waiting for clearance,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Right now, Palacios said, it\u2019s just a matter of when the Department of Defense can deem Rota\u2019s ports safe for entry. Most of the equipment needed for Rota\u2019s recovery has already been pre-staged during the preparation phase.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the key components in this is the airports. DOD needs to do a professional assessment of the runways to determine whether it can land one of their helicopters on Rota. They\u2019re going to be doing that assessment today so we can begin recovery for Rota,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Overall, Palacios said the CNMI is fortunate because, although Typhoon Mawar wreaked havoc on Rota, there were no fatalities reported.<\/p>\n

In addition, on the bright side, Palacios said his administration has learned from this storm and is looking at having more emergency equipment stationed on Rota in case of another disaster, given how isolated the island is and how tricky the Rota channel can be.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re very fortunate that there has been no fatalities. Obviously we\u2019re going to learn a lot from the Rota case, so we can be able to address those in the future. We know now that we need to station a lot of equipment on Rota in case of another storm because it is very isolated and the biggest challenge we\u2019ve faced is how to transport the equipment needed for a storm to Rota,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Several hours after Typhoon Mawar barreled through the Rota channel on its way outside the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":392507,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[257],"class_list":["post-392504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-nmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392504","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}