Gov. Juan N. Babauta and some other government officials spent their day yesterday making rounds islandwide to assess the impact of Typhoon Tingting.<\/p>\n
Babauta, who rode in the car driven by Public Works Secretary Juan Reyes, began the inspection in Lower Base and Garapan area.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s widespread flooding. That\u2019s because of the heavy rains brought by the typhoon. The drainage system is just inadequate. Well, any system could be inadequate in this situation,\u201d said Babauta.<\/p>\n
He said fallen trees could be seen in several areas \u201cbecause the soil had been saturated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cRemember that it\u2019s been raining in the past week or so,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Babauta, who dropped by at the Emergency Management Office early afternoon, decided to elevate the tropical storm to typhoon condition at about 2:30pm when maximum sustained winds reached 75mph with gusty winds of 90mph.<\/p>\n
Babauta said he and other officials visited different emergency shelters on the island.<\/p>\n
As of 3pm, the government recorded 197 evacuees that are temporarily sheltered in various schools.<\/p>\n
As of 7pm, Babauta who was in Koblerville Elementary School, said that based on forecasts, the heaviest rains were expected last night.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re going through the second half of the typhoon. I just talked with EMO and it said that heavy rains would continue in the next three to four hours,\u201d said the governor.<\/p>\n
Hopefully, he said, the typhoon\u2019s strength would lessen beginning today.<\/p>\n
No initial estimate of damages has been assessed yet. \u201cIt\u2019s still hard to tell because we\u2019re in the middle of it,\u201d Babauta said. <\/p>\n
He said the massive flooding would bring damage to properties, cars, and crops.<\/p>\n
Commonwealth Utilities Corp. emergency response staff Larry Guerrero said falling trees had damaged several electric poles causing power interruptions. He said the CUC trouble desk was activated to respond to emergency calls.<\/p>\n
Meantime, EMO staff John Mario and Digna Kaainoa said that EMO\u2019s seven lines and hotlines were ringing continuously with calls from residents wanting to get weather updates.<\/p>\n
Secretary Reyes said his team had been alerted 24 hours to clear roads of fallen trees and other obstructions.<\/p>\n
Public Safety Commissioner Ed Camacho said the situation was \u201ctough.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s lots of water damage,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
He said the heavy downpour had caused ravines to enlarge, rocks to fall, and streams to overflow. \u201cWe advise the public to take extra caution when driving,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Babauta said \u201cpeople should better stay indoor\u201d when they can. \u201cStay dry. Stay at home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rep. Joseph Deleon Guerrero, who went to EMO yesterday afternoon, also visited emergency shelters. \u201cI\u2019m doing my rounds with my son to assess the situation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Gov. Juan N. Babauta and some other government officials spent their day yesterday making rounds islandwide to assess the impact of Typhoon Tingting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-82243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82243","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}