Typhoons have roared over Guam with terrific fury ever since that tiny island was thrown up from the ocean floor to form the exposed portion of the steep northwestern cliff of great Nero Deep. But, because Guam is far from the sea lanes connecting the Orient with the Western Hemisphere and because a study of the frequency and intensity of typhoons was not essential to navigation, such storms heretofore were largely of meteorological interest only, even though they played havoc with native life and with the vegetation of this and other islands of the Guam group.
Guam is now an important port of call since it is on the transoceanic aviation routes. As a consequence, typhoons can no longer go uncharted as they roar over the north Pacific islands, through the Carolines, Marshalls, and Marianas groups, for now pilots on our air lanes must be correctly warned and advised and their bases properly protected.
The violent typhoon which struck Guam during the first week in November, 1940, wrought far-reaching tragedy. The reported 150-mile an hour wind blew away radio facilities, damaged the navy yard, destroyed many homes of the native Chamorros, and wrecked the Pan American headquarters and hotel. Such a wake of wreckage is a serious blow to a small isolated community, 5,500 miles from our mainland. Far more serious than ruined buildings, since there was no loss of life, is the injury to vegetation upon which the economic life of the island is based.
The typhoons which strike Guam present two problems to the United States: the immediate one of relief for a native population temporarily bereft of its sources of economic income; and the basic problem of forecasting these major meteorological disturbances before they strike, together with preparations to mitigate the blow when it falls.
The earliest typhoon recorded, and the most severe one experienced since United States ownership of the island, may serve to illustrate how catastrophic such a natural phenomenon may be. The first typhoon recorded on Guam occurred September 8, 1671, while the Spaniards were in the midst of a war for supremacy over the native Chamorros. The Spanish Jesuit missionaries described the storm as:
The most furious which had been seen on the island, veering in a short time all around the compass; ruining nearly all the houses in the towns on the island, especially those of the chief conspirators; tearing up breadfruit trees together with palms and other plants with which they nourish themselves, leaving many of them in a condition without farms, without houses, and without food.
Unfortunately the church and the house of the missionaries, as well as the soldiers’ barracks, were also destroyed. This led one of the native “wizards” to declare that he and the native gods were more powerful than the God of the Spaniards, since their holy building was swept away by the storm while his simple house was not seriously injured! And the tragedy caused by natural forces was augmented by renewed bloody warfare between these two groups.
Other violent typhoons which have laid waste the island occurred in August, 1848, September, 1871, November, 1895, May and November, 1900, August, 1902, November, 1914, July, 1918, and October, 1924, with less devastating storms occurring between these times. These dates indicate that the typhoon season in the Guam area extends from May through November. Now again in November, 1940, a terrific wind and heavy rainfall have caused damage which may take years to repair.
[IMAGE-U.S.S YOSEMITE Courtesy Office of Naval Records and Library, Navy Department]
Governor Seaton Schroeder, then a Commander in the U. S. Navy, has given his own vivid description of the typhoon which swept over the island on November 13, 1900, leaving a wake of wreckage and death. In his Reminiscences he wrote: “It first began to be realized at about four in the morning that something unusual was happening. The barometer was falling rapidly, and the wind was so strong that the storm-shutters on Government House had to be closed, barred, and supported as well as possible from inside. One shutter after another was crushed in and everything inside completely wrecked. Not long afterwards a fierce ripping sound announced that the heavy galvanized iron roof had begun to go, and in a short time the whole of it had been deposited in greater or smaller sections on the slopes and summit of a high ridge at the back of the grounds. Heavy downpours of drenching rain added their quota to the terrifying conditions; and as cellars are unknown in Guam, no refuge was to be found anywhere. At about noon the wind shifted rapidly to the eastward, and when I sped out to see if anything could be and was being done to aid the stricken townspeople, I found that several parties of seamen and marines had anticipated me and were valiantly at work rescuing those in danger. The wild fury of the wind made it impossible to stand or even to crawl in exposed places; the only resource was to lie flat and roll or wriggle to the shelter of some wall or low ruin. I managed to reach a peace of wall and stood behind it for a moment to catch my breath, but I was driven from there by heavy fragments being blown off and down on me; fortunately the fragments did not have far to fall, and although brought to my knees, I escaped injury beyond bruises and a wrenched shoulder. By that time everything in the shape of tiles, timber, tin roofing, trees and coconuts that could be blown about had already been blown away, so there was less danger from such sources. But the sea was slowly and inexorably rising, sucked up by the diminished atmospheric pressure indicated by the low barometer (the mercurial barometer reached the phenomenally low point of 28.1 inches at Agaña); and its majestic swelling was awe-inspiring as, without a wave, it engulfed all the low parts of the city, finally reaching the plaza in front of the Palace.”
In Agaña there was little loss of life in the 1900 typhoon, due to the efficient rescue work of the Navy, but in the southeastern comer of the island, a huge wall of water coming in from the sea completely overwhelmed the town of Inarajan, killing or drowning 28 persons who had remained in the village, unwilling or unable to brave the storm and to take refuge on the surrounding but shelterless mountains.
During this storm the station ship, the U.S.S. Yosemite, was torn loose from her moorings in Apra Harbor and blown first landward on the reef near Sumay and then in the opposite direction out to sea over the Calalan Banks near Spanish Rocks, and although it was a deep-draft vessel, according to one of the survivors, the reef and rocks were not touched on that eventful crossing. In a sinking condition the ship was blown helplessly in the track of the storm for a day and a night. When the violence finally abated, the Yosemite was a complete wreck as she wallowed in the trough of great seas. The crew, after makeshift repairs, hoisted a jury sail and attempted to proceed toward Guam at an estimated speed of about 2 knots. Three days later, the collier U.S.S. Justin, which Governor Schroeder had ordered out to search for the Yosemite, located the victim of the typhoon. All attempts to tow the ship into port proved unsuccessful as her holds had been flooded and she listed heavily to port. After collecting all the ship’s papers and more than 3 tons of Mexican dollars (about $60,000 in gold at that time), the Yosemite was abandoned with sea valves open. She sank within 20 minutes in 4,000 fathoms of water and the Justin fired three shots from a 6-pounder over her grave.
Loss of coconut palms is the chief economic aftereffect of a typhoon since these trees are the money crop of native populations in the tropics. The coconut palm supplies food and shelter for the Chamorros on Guam and is the basis of the only commercial products of the island. The coconut palm provides timber and thatching for most of their buildings; wood for their furniture, utensils, baskets, and brooms; their fuel (coconut husks make superior fires for cooking as well as charcoal for gas masks); the food and the drink for both men and animals (coconut fattened chicken and pork make superior food); yeast, vinegar, tuba, and “spirits”; coconut oil soap, and copra with all their commerical by-products; coir rope, fish bait, and fertilizer. In fact, this tree has been aptly described as “the most valuable tree in the world,” and without it native life in the tropics would have been impossible. Consequently a typhoon which causes damage to the coconut plantations that will take years to repair is a major catastrophe. When these trees are snapped off or uprooted by a severe gale, it takes approximately 7 years for new shoots to mature and bear fruit. If, however, the coconut palms are topped, but not killed, it takes about 4 years for them to return to a state of bearing. If the trees are stripped of their leaves, as happens in severe wind storms and incipient typhoons, the inflorescence formed in the apicals of the old leaves is injured, the flower buds die, and it takes more than a year for coconuts to grow and ripen and for the native population again to cut copra.
After each severe typhoon, it has been the custom to plant thousands of coconuts and to nurture young shoots in order to replace the trees uprooted or destroyed by the fury of the wind, rain, and sea. In the growing period, however, the Chamorros have been assisted not only by the Federal Department of Agriculture in rehabilitating their ranches and devastated acres of land, but also by the American Red Cross in carrying the people through the period of emergency.
Coffee, cacao, and most fruit trees usually recover within a year from the effects of a typhoon, but corn, rice, and tobacco must be replanted. Fortunately sea food is abundant, and usually within a year of a disaster, the population has been able to feed itself again. But until copra can be cut once more, the chief source of personal money income has disappeared from the island, and regardless of world economic conditions, times are “hard” on Guam. At this time the loss suffered by the island from the recent typhoon is disheartening, for the price of copra is rising and a period of economic prosperity had been anticipated by the native ranchers.
Since Guam is securely anchored in this typhoon area, the most that science may hope to do, in addition to compiling data, is to provide adequate warning of the approach of these devastating storms and to predict their intensity to communities lying in their probable path.
In spite of the great advance that has been made in meteorology since the development of the air mass analysis and frontal theories, the place of origin of typhoons and the source of energy for such great and often widespread violence are still open to extensive investigation. Mariners will agree that together with their cousins, the hurricanes, typhoons are the most violent type of meteorological disturbance—the devil’s fury on the high seas.
Jesuit priests at the Manila Observatory have worked for many years to further the knowledge of typhoons and to protect the Philippine archipelago by adequate warnings. They have been greatly handicapped by not having information from stations to the eastward from the Caroline, Marshalls, Pelews, and Marianas. Father Doucette, Chief of the Meteorological Division, Manila Observatory, in discussing the problem in 1934, pleaded for accurate barometer reports from Guam to assist him and his associates at Hongkong and Shanghai in their work.
At that time there were four unrelated and disconnected groups of meteorological observers on the Island of Guam, all of whom lacked proper aerological training in some phase of the subject. The reports cabled to the Manila Observatory were obtained from data assembled by employees of the Commercial Pacific Cable Company which maintained an elementary weather station at Sumay, present site of the Pan American air base. Government meteorological observations were made by enlisted native men of the Insular Force at Piti, the port of entry from Apra Harbor, but because of the sheltered exposure of wind instruments, these data seldom gave even a fair picture of the true meteorological condition in the Guam vicinity. The most reliable weather records were made by the late Mr. W. W. Rowley at Agaña, but extended only from January, 1920, to January, 1934. These were largely climatological data, insufficient for the typhoon research. However, in July, 1934, a naval aerological station was established on Apugan Hill, a rise directly behind Agaña, the capital of the island, and subsequently the Navy began another peacetime contribution for the good of the millions of people in the Philippines, China, and Japan, who are the habitual sufferers from the fury of typhoons. It is hoped that after sufficient accurate observations have been made on Guam, giving reliable data to analyze, some meteorologist may be able to use this information together with other data from the surrounding island groups to evolve definite laws regarding the origin of typhoons.
The Japanese have been most active in the work of collecting meteorological data since taking over mandated Pacific Islands. It is known that at least six observations are made daily at stations in the Pelews and Carolines, but unfortunately the extent of their work has not been made known nor are their observations made available to the outside world. This is to be regretted, for just as typhoons recognize no national boundaries when they sweep destruction in their unpredictable paths, men must draw no racial lines in the interchange of meteorological information which may serve as a warning and safeguard to many thousands of fellowmen. If, however, meteorological co-operation with stations on the Marshalls, and Caroline Islands to the eastward, could be effected by interchange of synoptic reports, some degree of preparedness, particularly as far as the human factor is concerned, would result. But apparently no protection, even partial, can be developed to save the coco palms, the “pay-crop” and the mainstay of the people. Stored supplies and emergency equipment must always be kept in Guam, for as long as we own the island we must be prepared on short notice to “carry” the Chamorros for at least a growing season after each devastating typhoon.
The problem of the typhoons over Guam is one of great personal tragedy and economic loss to the native Chamorros. To the United States Guam has become one of the important steppingstones in the Pacific from a commercial point of view. No matter which type of craft use it, aviation or surface, the problem of making Apra Harbor a refuge from typhoons must be carefully considered. When constructing protective facilities, engineers must not only allow for full typhoon gales and high waves, but also for the uncontrollable rise in the surface of the sea caused not only by the banking up of the water from the force of the wind, but also by the expansion of the ocean’s mass due to diminution in pressure during the storm. And if the work is not well done, other craft caught in its inadequately protected harbor may suffer the fate of the U.S.S. Yosemite.
The great importance of Guam as a landing point for transoceanic air service, and the importance of Guam’s meteorological records and resources, especially with regard to tropical storms which may interfere with essential aviation, cannot be overstressed.