Super Typhoon Sinlaku battered the U.S. Pacific territories of Saipan and Tinian in the Northern Mariana Islands on April 14, with ferocious winds and relentless rain snapping branches, tearing off roofs and driving residents indoors. Officials said they were still assessing damage after the storm slowed during the hours before daybreak, and they warned that dangerous winds would continue even as the eye moved northwest of the islands.
In Saipan, home and business damage drew immediate accounts from residents and local officials. Jaden Sanchez, the spokesperson for the Saipan mayor’s office, said preliminary reports included flooding, uprooted trees and downed power lines, and he said there were no reports of deaths. Sanchez added that authorities advised residents to remain indoors and away from strong winds while Mayor Ramon “RB” Jose Blas Camacho assessed impacts in the community.
On the island, damage included structures ripped by wind. A resident in the village of Susupe on Saipan described seeing the wind tear the roof off a commercial building and break tree branches, and a blue sedan was reported lying on its side. Another resident, Dong Min Lee, said winds also tore off part of a balcony railing and that he shot video showing a car sitting on top of two others in an apartment building’s parking lot.
The National Weather Service said Sinlaku was the strongest tropical cyclone on Earth this year, packing sustained winds of up to 150 mph (240 kph) at landfall. Tropical-force winds and torrential rainfall also led to flash flooding on Guam, where the National Weather Service said the storm struck earlier than in the Northern Marianas and had already moved through outer islands and atolls of Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia.
Authorities warned that the danger would not end immediately. Ken Kleeschulte, acting science and operations officer for the National Weather Service on Guam, said winds of at least 75 mph (121 kph) or greater were expected to continue through Wednesday afternoon while the storm’s eye moved northwest of Saipan and Tinian. He added that even as winds slowed toward about 50 mph (80 kph), they would remain too strong for people to safely go outside for at least a day and a half, and he said Sinlaku would begin to curve toward sparsely populated volcanic islands in the far northern Marianas.
In Guam, U.S. military officials warned personnel to shelter in place, the Associated Press reported. The military controls about one-third of the land on Guam, which is home to multiple U.S. military installations, and officials said the storm had the potential to disrupt operations even if rescue and assessment teams continued working across the territories.
The disaster response included sheltering people displaced by conditions. The American Red Cross and its partners were sheltering more than 1,000 residents across Guam and the Northern Marianas, according to the agency’s spokesperson Stephanie Fox. President Donald Trump approved emergency disaster declarations ahead of the latest storm for Guam and the Mariana Islands, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency said it was coordinating across multiple agencies and dispatching nearly 100 FEMA staff along with other personnel.
Residents also described the intensity of the storm and how it compounded recent recovery efforts. Glen Hunter, who grew up on Saipan, said this felt like the strongest typhoon yet and described rain seeping into every crevice of his concrete home as multiple tin roofs flew past his yard. He said he had heard “banging and clanging through the night” and, by Tuesday night’s aftermath, Ed Propst, a former lawmaker in Saipan who works in the governor’s office, said he had not heard of deaths, attributing it to residents taking shelter when they weren’t in a concrete home.
Saipan’s recovery has been shaped by prior storms. Hunter said the tourism-dependent island was still recovering from Super Typhoon Yutu in 2018 when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived, slowing efforts to rebound. The president of Northern Marianas College, Galvin Deleon Guerrero, said Yutu destroyed 85% of the college’s campus and that the school had secured $100 million in grant funding to rebuild before Sinlaku struck again.
Officials and forecasters also noted the timing and broader pattern of Pacific storms. Jason Nicholls, AccuWeather’s lead international forecaster, said tropical systems can develop in the West Pacific any time of year but that getting one in April is “a little unusual.” He also said the peak season in the Pacific is similar to the Atlantic hurricane season, running from summer to fall.