Guam Typhoon Razes Hundreds of Homes

Typhoon Paka ripped across Guam before dawn today, howling and screeching as winds up to 175 mph tore roofs off homes and sent trees flying.

Several people were injured in the fierce storm, which destroyed several hundred homes and prompted the governor to appeal for federal aid as damage was estimated to exceed $200 million.

The entire island lost power after flooding knocked out four power plants and screaming winds snapped concrete power poles.

“This typhoon was almost 12 hours of destructive winds,” said Gov. Carl T. C. Gutierrez after surveying the damage.

A Japanese tourist suffered a fractured skull after being hit by flying debris and a woman had her fingers amputated after a wind-blown car door slammed on her hand, said officials at Guam Memorial Hospital, which was running generators for electricity. Several other people were injured by collapsing homes, officials said.

The northern part of the island bore the brunt of the storm, which passed through the channel between the U.S. territory and the island of Rota Tuesday night and this morning.

At least 1,200 people were in shelters after the chaotic night, according to the American Red Cross.

Homes were left roofless and doors and windows were blown away in the night. Roads ended abruptly in a tangle of downed power poles and wire. Poles that remained standing held clusters of twisted tin roofing, mattresses and unidentifiable debris from the high winds.

In the village of Dededo, fierce winds sent 25-foot-tall trees crashing down on either side of Agnes Benavente’s home. Then, as the eye of the storm passed and the wind direction reversed, the uprooted trees were stood on end and flung into her yard.

The rain was blinding, Benavente said: “We couldn’t see anything. All we could hear was everybody’s tin roofs rolling down the streets.”

The sheets of metal sent sparks flying in a display that looked like “lightning right there on the road,” she said.

The storm was a night of give and take for Fred Cruz, who had the porch of his home torn away, only to have someone else’s roof flung onto the back of his house.

“Ours took off and this one came,” Cruz said, pointing to a 200-square-foot tin roof that stood like a lean-to on the back of his house. He said he checked the neighborhood and was unable to find either his own porch or the source of the roof.

Cruz said he was lucky not to have lost his entire home. He spent Tuesday night watching the roof flex as beams lifted several inches from their posts.

“Boy, it almost went,” Cruz said. “It was ferocious.” Eventually, the ceiling in the kitchen collapsed, several windows blew in and the entire home was filled with wind-driven rain.

A shopping center that is home to 13 restaurants and stores, including a Sears, had its entire 30,000-square-foot roof torn away. Most of the roof lay in a giant coil on the ground, looking like a giant caterpillar inching down the street.

The island’s 135,000 residents may be without electricity for several weeks. A third of the homes are without water and 10% have no phone service, according to civil defense officials.

Gutierrez said the island had six days to prepare for the storm. But some residents may not have seen the typhoon as a serious threat, as the island has already been brushed by major storms several times this year and had not sustained serious damage, he added.

Times staff writer Matea Gold in Los Angeles and the Associated Press contributed to this story.