Super Typhoon Bavi slammed into the U.S. island of Rota with 180-mph winds this week, flattening infrastructure across the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam before turning west toward Taiwan and mainland China. The storm, equivalent to a Category 5 hurricane, left widespread power outages, flooded roads, and shattered trees across American territories that were still picking up the pieces from a prior super typhoon just months ago.
No deaths have been reported on Guam or in the Northern Marianas. But the damage is severe, the recovery is barely underway, and a second landfall is expected within days.
FOX Weather reported that Bavi struck Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands on Monday afternoon with sustained winds of 180 mph, dumping a record 12.64 inches of rain at the Guam airport and recording top gusts of 111 mph on both Guam and Saipan. The storm is now tracking westward with winds still topping 150 mph, and the FOX Forecast Center projects Bavi could make landfall in Taiwan as early as Saturday, arriving as the equivalent of a Category 2 hurricane with gusts peaking above 100 mph before pushing into mainland China.
The roughly 1,500 to 2,000 residents of Rota, a small island about 50 miles north of Guam, bore the worst of Bavi's eyewall. Newsmax reported that the National Weather Service warned of "catastrophic winds exceeding 150 mph" during the eyewall's passage over the island. Rota Mayor Aubry Hocog urged residents to protect their families and neighbors, saying, "We pray for the safety of our people."
The AP reported NWS meteorologist Edwin Montvilahis' warning: "Entering outside can result in death from flying projectiles. Utility poles and associated power lines will be down."
Guam Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero acknowledged the storm's severity but expressed confidence in local readiness:
"Here we are experiencing another severe force of winds on our island, but as we know, we are always ready and prepared in our planning and our protection of our people."
That confidence will be tested. Guam hosts more than 7,000 active-duty military personnel and key U.S. Pacific defense assets, as the New York Post noted, making the island's infrastructure resilience a matter of national security as well as local survival.
What makes Bavi's toll especially punishing is that these islands had not yet recovered from Super Typhoon Sinlaku, which battered Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands on April 14. Sinlaku packed 185-mph winds and a minimum central pressure of 890 millibars. Its estimated damage exceeded $1.5 billion.
The Commonwealth Utilities Corporation, which serves the Northern Marianas, reported that it had restored power to parts of Tinian but was struggling to bring portions of the Saipan power plant back online, in part because of infrastructure damage that Sinlaku had already inflicted. Many residents on Saipan and Tinian were already living without electricity before Bavi arrived.
On Guam, the Guam Power Authority said restoration efforts were underway, with the least damaged villages expected to come online first. But "underway" is a long way from "finished," and the scope of the outages has not been fully detailed.
Two super typhoons in fewer than three months, each packing winds near or above 180 mph. For American citizens living on these islands, that is not an abstract weather statistic. It is a compounding disaster, each storm erasing whatever progress the last recovery had achieved.
The western Pacific has been producing unusually intense cyclones, and the conditions fueling them are not a mystery. Record ocean temperatures and a Super El Niño building toward record strength have supercharged the warm water that typhoons feed on. Bavi maintained its extreme power precisely because of very warm ocean water beneath its track, and forecasters expect only gradual weakening as it crosses cooler sections of the Philippine Sea.
Rota alone has now been struck by Super Typhoon Sinlaku, Super Typhoon Mawar in 2023, and now Bavi, three devastating storms in roughly three years. Breitbart, citing AP reporting, noted that Bavi's gusts reached as high as 215 mph, underscoring the raw destructive power bearing down on small island populations with limited resources.
Scientists have pointed to the current El Niño cycle as a major driver. NASA satellite data confirmed the Super El Niño's development across the Pacific earlier this year, and forecasters warned it would amplify storm intensity on both sides of the ocean.
Bavi is not finished. The FOX Forecast Center projects the typhoon will reach Taiwan by Saturday, potentially making landfall with winds peaking above 100 mph. Northern Taiwan faces the threat of heavy rain, flash flooding, landslides, and storm surge. After crossing Taiwan, Bavi is expected to continue into mainland China at roughly Category 2 strength.
The storm's gradual weakening over the Philippine Sea may spare Taiwan and China from the full Category 5 force that struck the Marianas. But a Category 2 landfall is still a dangerous event, especially for coastal communities and mountainous terrain prone to landslides.
For the moment, the immediate concern is American. Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands are U.S. territories. Their residents are U.S. citizens. And right now, those citizens are sitting in the dark, some for the second time since April, waiting for power crews to reach them while debris from two super typhoons litters their roads and parks.
No official declaration of emergency or disaster has been confirmed in the available reporting. Whether federal aid is flowing, and at what scale, remains unclear. The $1.5 billion damage estimate from Sinlaku alone raises serious questions about whether these territories have the fiscal capacity to absorb back-to-back catastrophes without substantial federal support.
The El Niño-fueled typhoon threat to the Mariana Islands was flagged well before Bavi formed. Whether territorial and federal agencies used that lead time to harden infrastructure, pre-position supplies, and prepare evacuation plans is a question that deserves a clear answer, not after the next storm, but now.
Residents moved to emergency evacuation centers and made last-minute preparations on July 5, hours before Bavi's projected arrival. That they survived without reported fatalities is a credit to local preparedness and individual resilience. But survival is a low bar when American citizens are enduring repeat devastation on this scale.
These are American islands, American citizens, and American problems. The Pacific may feel remote from Washington, but the obligation is not.
