page_title: Typhoon Yutu
section_title: Northern Mariana Islands
hierarchical_section_title: Typhoon Yutu / Impact / Northern Mariana Islands
caption_attribution_description: TINIAN, N. Marianas Islands (Nov. 1, 2018) A Seabee assigned to Naval Mobile Construction Battalion (NMCB) 1 removes debris from a road during recovery operations following Typhoon Yutu. Service members from Joint Region Marianas and Indo-Pacific Command are providing Department of Defense support to the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands civil and local officials as part of the FEMA-supported Typhoon Yutu recovery efforts. (U.S. Navy photo by Chief Mass Communication Specialist Matthew R. White /Released)181101-N-WR252-080
context_page_description: Typhoon Yutu, known in the Philippines as Typhoon Rosita, was an extremely powerful tropical cyclone that caused catastrophic destruction on the islands of Tinian and Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, and later impacted the Philippines. It is the strongest typhoon ever recorded to impact the Mariana Islands, and is tied as the second-strongest tropical cyclone to strike the United States and its unincorporated territories by both wind speed and barometric pressure. Yutu was also the most powerful tropical cyclone worldwide in 2018. The fortieth tropical depression, twenty-sixth named storm, twelfth typhoon, and the seventh super typhoon of the 2018 Pacific typhoon season, Yutu originated from a low-pressure area that formed in the western Pacific Ocean on October 15. The disturbance organized into a tropical depression on the same day, as ocean sea-surface heat content increased. Shortly after becoming a tropical depression, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center assigned the system the identifier 31W. The system continued to strengthen, becoming a tropical storm several hours later, with the Japan Meteorological Agency naming the system Yutu.
context_section_description: Striking Tinian and Saipan on October 24 as a Category 5-equivalent super typhoon, Yutu became the strongest tropical cyclone to ever impact the Mariana Islands and the second-strongest to strike the United States or its territories as a whole, tied with Typhoon Karen in 1962 and Hurricane Camille in 1969. Only the 1935 Labor Day hurricane impacted the country at a greater strength. Saipan International Airport recorded wind gusts of 103 mph (166 km/h). Yutu's eyewall also knocked out Saipan's doppler radar on October 25, during the storm's landfall.
  On Saipan, the typhoon killed two people; a woman when it wrecked the building she was staying in, and another woman who died of carbon monoxide poisoning caused by inhaling the fumes of a generator. At least 133 other people were left injured, three of whom were injured severely. The entirety of both islands were left without electricity. The majority of buildings in southern Saipan lost their roofs or were destroyed, including Hopwood Middle School, which suffered extensive damage. Low-lying vegetation in southern parts of the island were shredded or ripped from the ground. Saipan International Airport sustained significant damage; terminals flooded and navigation aids were rendered inoperable.
  The majority of homes on Tinian were severely damaged or destroyed. Some concrete structures sustained significant damage, with a few completely destroyed, and residents reported that those buildings shook during the typhoon. Storm shutters were torn from windows, leaving the interior of structures exposed to wind and water damage. In one instance, a door was ripped from a building and hurled 30 m (100 ft) into a pigsty. The island's only health center sustained major damage; however, no patients were being treated at the time. Tinian International Airport suffered significant damage. Total damage estimated by FEMA reached $800 million.
  A pilot based on Saipan, Chris McNaughton, was the first pilot to make it into Tinian after the typhoon. He described the island as “a war zone, like an atomic bomb had been dropped.” Meteorologist Brandon Aydlett at the National Weather Service described the typhoon as "the storm which sets the scale for which future storms are compared to".
caption: A seabee sailor removing debris in Tinian following Typhoon Yutu
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