With residents in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands expected to face the brunt of Super Typhoon Sinlaku, KUAM's colleague and friend, former KUAM News regional correspondent and founder of Marianas Press Thomas Manglona spoke on how communities in Rota, Tinian and Saipan are doing ahead of Sinlaku's approach.

As the super typhoon continued its destructive path towards Tinian and Saipan, residents are already feeling the impacts across the cnmi by tuesday morning from power outages to fallen trees, according to Manglona, a Saipan resident. "We are getting outages on Rota and Tinian. And Saipan, as of 9:18am this morning is still an island-wide power outage and the Utilities Company Corporations said they're going to keep their crews sheltered as well because we're seeing those strong winds. So we're going to be without power for the foreseeable future until crews can get out there safely after the typhoon," he said.

Manglona's more than a little familiar to our airwaves, and currently hunkering down in our neighboring island about 100 miles north of Guam.

"Official sources are telling everyone to shelter in place," he detailed. "There's no reason to be outside at all. And so, we're hoping everyone heeds that notice. we're also learning that there's over 300 people right now in the official government shelters across the Marianas, as well."

Over 40,000 residents across the CNMI could be affected by Sinlaku. Manglona says they know what's coming and prepared right away, even before the typhoon shifted away from Guam towards them. "Even though the initial forecast showed it was going towards Guam, the CNMI community jumped right into action and didn't wait for any direct notice in terms of it tracking upward, as you know that happened later in the forecast. As I was sharing yesterday, unlike other storms I've seen, this time around, people gradually came out over the week to prepare. So there weren't any long lines at any gas stations or stores that I could see, like in those previous times," Manglona shared.

The CNMI is no stranger to super typhoons. Manglona confirms tinian and saipan are still recovering from Super Typhoon Yutu, which hit the islands eight years ago as a Category 5 monster storm in 2018.

During KUAM's interview Monday, National Weather Service meteorologist Landon Aydlett warned sinlaku could be as "catastrophic as Yutu for Tinian and Saipan in the worst-case scenario." Tuesday morning, officials said Sinlaku was weakening, but could still pass over or near Tinian and Saipan as a Category 4 or 5 weather system.

"In the terms of impacts to the Northern Mariana Islands, the National Weather Service is reporting that typhoon-force winds of 130 up to 155 mph and 175 mph gusts are forecasted for Tinian and Saipan Tuesday night," reported Manglona. "And so, what we learned is that we're going to see the strongest winds a few hours around midnight before or after that time period. So it is going to be a middle of the night storm. We are going to see some of those peak conditions right after sunset tonight on Tuesday."

In the meantime, Manglona sent a message to family, friends and his community, saying, "We're of course hoping everyone shelters in place or gets to a safe place or is able to be in a safe place. we'll hopefully see everyone on the other side of the typhoon and we'll just pray that it's not as, it won't be as bad as previous typhoons."