HONOLULU (AP) 鈥� Residents of U.S. territories in the western Pacific were bracing Friday for a possible super typhoon, just months after the region was hit by the on Earth this year.
Power still hasn’t been in the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands after that super typhoon, Sinlaku, brought ferocious winds and relentless rains in April. Some people are still living in tents after their homes were destroyed.
鈥淲e’re getting ready to do this all over again,鈥� said Edwin Propst a former lawmaker who works in the governor’s office on Saipan, where it was already Friday. 鈥淭he timing is terrible.鈥�
Typhoon Bavi was expected to become a super typhoon by Sunday night to early Monday, when it is forecast to reach the Marianas, said Paul Stanko, senior meteorologist with the National Weather Service on Guam.
A cyclone becomes a when it has maximum sustained winds of 150 mph (241 kph) or stronger. Super typhoons are equivalent to a high-end Category 4 or Category 5 storm, Stanko said.
Bavi was 760 miles (1,223 kilometers) east of Guam on Friday with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (129 kph), the weather service said.
Some residents are hoping Guam takes the brunt of Bavi to give their neighbors in the Northern Marianas a reprieve while they slowly recover from Sinlaku, Stanko said.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 what we鈥檙e actually hoping for because then Saipan wouldn鈥檛 get it as bad,鈥� he said.
Propst was hearing the same from others on Guam.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 so island-style,鈥� he said. 鈥淕od bless them for saying that.鈥�
Guam is located west of the International Date Line and is known as as it is hours ahead of Hawaii, Alaska and the U.S. mainland. It is home to two large U.S. military bases.
Propst said residents were covering windows with plywood and storing gasoline because there were long lines at gas stations for weeks after Sinlaku.
The Rev. Francis Hezel, assistant pastor of Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Dededo, Guam, said he鈥檚 hoping no island takes the brunt of the storm. But he said he wasn鈥檛 too worried, having lived through numerous typhoons. He was hopeful Bavi would change course.
鈥淩ight now the pattern is heading towards us, but those patterns change,鈥� he said.
Still, church workers and residents were preparing.
鈥淭his is getting to be the normal thing now, typhoon preparedness,鈥� Hezel said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 happening more frequently.鈥�
increases hurricane season activity in the Pacific. Experts say the El Nino, a natural warming cycle, should further heat a globe already warming from fossil fuel pollution and will likely turbocharge extreme weather across the planet.
While Sinlaku didn鈥檛 cause on deaths on land, Propst said residents were still mourning the of a cargo ship that overturned during the typhoon. Searchers found one body but the U.S. Coast Guard suspended the more than 100-hour search before finding the rest.
Propst said while a lot of progress has been made in recovering from Sinlaku, 鈥渨e鈥檙e not quite there yet.鈥�
鈥淎 few more months would have been good,” he said.
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