THE Torres administration is grateful to the CNMI community for following tropical storm advisories over the weekend as Tropical Storm Mindulle made its way through the region, Press Secretary Kevin Bautista said on Sunday.
Kevin Bautista
“In every natural disaster threat to the Marianas, the Torres administration has made it a paramount priority to effectively and rapidly communicate to the general public in order to keep residents safe, especially the most vulnerable in our community,” he added.
“We thank the community for being cooperative and for following our numerous updates and announcements from Gov. Ralph DLG Torres and our Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management,” Bautista said.
“Our community has an insatiable appetite for content, and rightfully so. During storms, emergencies, and this ongoing pandemic, everyone is constantly wanting updates, advisories, warnings, and guidance to prepare for the worst so that they can take care of their families and friends with the most updated and accurate public information,” he said.
“Since I became press secretary in 2017, I wanted to make sure our administration devotes itself to being a true rapid-response agency that can handle disasters and crises in an effective and expedient manner. I wanted to improve the way we did emergency public information during Typhoon Soudelor, so that every element of communication from weather changes to shelter listings to mass care to recovery updates were covered and articulated. This also includes expanding our government social media channels beyond Facebook to include Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp to complement the work of our media partners, our radio stations, and the newspapers to ensure redundancy and audience gaps were addressed,” he added.
The press secretary said this commitment was demonstrated during Super Typhoon Yutu and all other storms after that as well as the public information campaign of “Stay at Home, Stop the Spread” during the early days of the pandemic to encourage people to social distance in order to protect the CNMI.
“That work continues to this day,” Bautista added.
“In our preparedness conversations with the National Weather Service, the storm that just passed us was a strange one due to the weather models showing different projections because of the way the storm was organized. Essentially, the storm formed within our region, bringing about three to five inches of rain to Saipan, Tinian, and Rota during the development of the tropical storm. Considering the vulnerability of our community following successive typhoon seasons and the unpredictable nature of this tropical storm, this forced us to be responsive and treat this with a sense of care when it came to communication. It is also why Governor Torres called for a shutdown of government offices to ensure that noncritical workers can go home and tend to their families.”
On Thursday, all CNMI government offices were shut down from 12 p.m. and all through Friday.
The Public School System and Northern Marianas College canceled their classes and closed their offices as well.
A small craft advisory and a flash flood watch also took effect on Thursday as heavy rainfall and sustained winds of 25 mph with gusts up to 35 mph to 40 mph were anticipated.
The governor declared Tropical Storm Condition III for Saipan, Tinian, and Rota — meaning that damaging winds of 39 to 74 mph were possible through Friday morning.
Shelters were activated on Saipan and Tinian as of 4 p.m. on Thursday, while emergency managers on Rota monitored the situation with shelters on standby.
The Commonwealth Office of Transit Authority was activated as well to provide transportation to shelters throughout the day.
At 11 p.m. on Thursday, Torres declared Tropical Storm Condition I for Saipan, Tinian, and Rota.
On Friday, Torres issued an all clear at 10 a.m. based on information received from NWS Guam that Tropical Storm Mindulle had moved west-northwest.
“Just like the pandemic, we thank the community this past week for being patient with our updates and for reminding ourselves why we are Marianas Strong,” Bautista said. “It takes a home, a village, an island, and one Commonwealth to look out for one another during any natural disaster threat, and everyone from the Emergency Operations Center [on] Capital Hill to people on all three islands sharing our press releases with their loved ones. There’s a lot of work being done by good people in government, and this storm is a reminder of the hard work to protect the community.”
