Typhoon Yutu

[RaiderRed30]

Before I start by I want to just state that I know that this is a board about Southeast Texas sports and that the locker room is not often looked at but considering I do not do social media this is the best place for me to vent.

On the night of October 23 and 24, 2018 the islands of Saipan and Tinian in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or CNMI, were completely destroyed by Supertyphoon Yutu. The CNMI is a United States territory just like Guam and Puerto Rico. Yutu made landfall at 180-185 miles per hour sustained winds and at one point its entire eye was over the island of Tinian and the tip of Saipan. It flipped cars, ripped jetways apart and moved them hundreds of feet, and it caused concrete buildings to collapse, yet to the mainland other than an quick article the day after the storm nothing. For the island of Saipan this is just 4 years after Typhoon Soudelor ripped apart the northern half of the island. Just like in Soudelor, when it was argued here on this board that the CNMI isn'r really a part of the US the mainland forgets about the 54,000 Americans that live on these islands. The military is here helping, as is FEMA, but unless you have a connection to these islands more than likely you did not think much about this storm. Today one month after the storm, maybe 20 percent of Saipan has power, while 80 percent has water. Some villages on the island have water every two days for two hours. On Tinian every house was damaged and they are not expecting power in the main village for another 2 months. Schools have been destroyed and 15,000 people are either homeless or living in damaged houses. These are Americans and there is no coverage.

As I stated at the beginning this is not the best site for me to place this, but it is the one place I can. I know that to the few that read this many will not care. You might say we understand because we went through Harvey just last year. I lived in Allison; more specifically I lived in Friendswood during Allison. I know that damage that Harvey caused because I lived though its little sister and Allison haunts me to this day. That night of Yutu I was lucky because I was in a house where the windows did not break. The next morning it took another person and I over 4 hours to get a 30 foot flame tree cut using machetes and handsaws. We drove around my village and the people I was with said it was worse than Soudelor. The next day I decided to drive down to the southern area of Saipan and the only thing comparable was that of a tornado but covering about 20 square miles, or 4 miles north to south and 5 miles east to west. It was and is equivalent to a way zone. We have had soldiers driving around in military humvees and cargo trucks. Lines waiting for barrels of water. MREs and DHRs. The only thing missing from making this a true war zone is the machine gun on top of the humvee. I was able to go to Tinian 9 days after the storm to help out. They have no place for food. The restaurants were destroyed and the two gas stations were not working. After a week they finally got one pump going, but the stores were running out of food; they still are. The island can and will recover. They did it with Soudelor, but once again we are forgotten when it comes to the news. Yes we are a ways out here, but in this day and age of technology that is no excuse. I know many will not see this and will brush this off, but the last thought I would like to say to everyone is that these two islands changed American history. The Battle of Saipan was the battle in which Japan knew that they could no longer when the war. Tinian is where the atomic bombs went off that killed millions, but saved millions more because they forced Japan to surrender and the US did not have to go through with the invasion. These are US islands with Americans living here and yet there is nothing on the news. We can talk politics and sports left and right. We can talk about fashion and who were it best, but we cannot spend more than basically five minutes the 3rd strongest storm to hit the United States or the people that are having to suffer because of it. It's just not right.

Thank you whoever reads this for letting me vent my thoughts and emotions.

[Hagar]

Glad you wrote it RR30, and you’re right, I haven’t seen anything about it in the news, unless it was a 5 second mention that I missed.  Unfortunately our media is more concerned with Trump bashing, and much of it is subtle.  A year after the Hurricane based Puerto Rico,  CBS did a big story on how bad it still is, including, “Many are still not back in their homes”.  Well whup-de-do, many were not back in their homes a year after Harvey.  If you want media coverage, I’d suggest contacting any major network (except FOX) - tell them how bad it is - and tell them it’s Trump’s fault.  And I’m not making light of the tragic situation on those islands, I really believe that might possibly get coverage.  Until then, all we can do is pray.