LIFE-THREATENING WINDS

Category 5 Super Typhoon Hits U.S. Soil in ‘Catastrophic’ Disaster

A super typhoon with winds of around 150 mph hit the U.S. Pacific territories on Monday.

An intense Category 5 typhoon has battered U.S. soil for only the sixth time in recorded history. The tropical cyclone Super Typhoon Bavi struck the island of Rota, part of the Northern Mariana Islands, a U.S. commonwealth, on Monday, with winds of around 150 miles per hour, causing devastation. The full extent of the damage to the small island, with a population of fewer than 2,000 people, is unclear at the moment. However, prior to making landfall, the National Weather Service warned that Rota getting hit by Bavi, could leave it “uninhabitable for weeks, perhaps longer.” It also warned that the “catastrophic winds” will cause an “extremely dangerous and life-threatening” situation. Juan Pan Guerrero, president of the Rota Chamber of Commerce, reported to AFP power outages and downed power lines amid the “major, major storm.” As noted by The Washington Post, one of the National Weather Service’s Guam-based weather radar machines captured Rota in the eye of a massive storm before it went down as conditions worsened. Meteorologist Matthew Cappucci described the image as showing Rota in an “oasis of calm surrounded by a ring of hell.” Bavi remained a Category 5 typhoon as it moved westward.