HAGÅTÑA (The Guam Daily Post) — As the first Category 4 typhoon to approach Guam since Pongsona in 2002, Typhoon Mawar will be a tree-shaking first time for some residents and a blast from the past for others who have enjoyed the relatively calm weather of the past two decades.
For some, like June Djao, Mawar will be the first big typhoon they’ve sat through on island. A little after noon Wednesday, the 47-year-old Djao was standing outside his inland Tamuning apartment laughing with his friends as wind conditions began to pick up.
“We’re waiting for the big hit. It is a (strong typhoon) but we’re waiting – it takes long on Guam,” said Djao, who first came here as a skilled H-1B in 2019 and missed even the milder Typhoon Dolphin in 2018.
Though seemingly nonchalant, he was aware of the seriousness of Mawar. Djao hails from the province of Southern Leyte in the Philippines, where he said he’s experienced supertyphoons while attending college. More recently, he had family caught up in 2013’s deadly Typhoon Haiyan, known as Supertyphoon Yolanda in the Philippines, where millions were affected and thousands died.
“There were many lives lost,” said Djao.
He said he’d already taken the time to secure his apartment and board up his windows with plywood.
“We’re worried because it’s big and it could damage some buildings,” he added.
For others, like veteran Malesso’ Mayor Ernest Chargualaf, prepping for the storm is like clockwork.
Chargualaf knows a thing or two about preparing for storms in the island’s southernmost village, and his experience goes way back before his tenure as mayor. He can still recall going out after Typhoon Pamela in 1976 to pick up the hundreds of crabs that were washed ashore by the storm surge – some of them clinging to the tops of trees.
But since taking office in 2008, he’s learned to tell whether a typhoon’s wind direction is likely to hit the village hard, where the flood prone areas are, and when trees are likely to start falling.
“Someone told me long ago, there’s a calm before the storm,” Chargualaf told The Guam Daily Post on Wednesday afternoon. And for much of that morning, things were calm in Malesso’, with only intermittent gusts kicking up.
And many of the people were also calm, refusing to leave homes in low-lying, flood-prone and coastal areas despite an order from the governor to evacuate no later than 6 p.m. Tuesday. Chargualaf said he sent his staff out to go door-to-door and tell people to leave, especially in the easily flooded Barcinas culvert area.
Just 60 people were occupying the shelter at Merizo Martyrs Memorial School.
“You can lead a horse to water, but whether they drink — some people are just stubborn,” he said.
Chargualaf said he understood the hesitancy of people who didn’t want to leave their homes — “it’s their discretion” — and many felt they knew how to handle themselves during a storm. But the decision put first responders like his staff at risk.
‘Last hurrah’
Either way, the mayor said they’ll be working around the clock to deal with fallen trees and address families in distress.
“I don’t want to be the best mayor on the island, I just want to be the best mayor for the people here in the village,” Chargualaf said.
He said he’ll have to teach the next person how to do the job, as he’s not running for reelection: “This is my last hurrah.”
A family uses the Inalåhan Middle School shelter ahead of the approaching Typhoon Mawar in Inalåhan on Tuesday.
