Guam Battered by Typhoon Roy’s 115-M.P.H. Winds

Winds gusting to 115 m.p.h. tore off tin roofs, toppled utility poles and trees and flattened crops as Typhoon Roy swept over this Western Pacific island Tuesday night, authorities reported.

One man was dead on arrival at a hospital during the height of the storm, but the death apparently was the result of a heart attack, said Frank Aguigui, a police department spokesman.

The storm’s eye swept directly over Rota, a small island of 1,500 residents 40 miles north of Guam, stripping tin roofs off wooden homes and blowing windows out of 80% of the concrete homes, police said.

“There was one reported injury, but we don’t have any details,” said Felex Sasamoto, the Civil Defense coordinator for the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.

On Guam, most of the island’s 126,000 residents rode out the storm in their homes, although 1,200 persons were evacuated to storm shelters set up in solid school buildings, Aguigui said.

Gov. Joseph Ada planned to meet with officials of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency and other relief agencies today to assess the damage. Guam is a U.S. possession.

Early today, the typhoon moved west toward the Philippines.