by Krystal Paco

Guam - The various villages in Central Guam began the cleanup process after facing Tropical Storm Halong on Wednesday. KUAM News was told that the resiliency of the residents there is strong, with neighbors helping each other out in working through the storm, with some being out of power since 8am yesterday.

In areas of Chalan Pago where it's usually flooded like along Maimai Road, Naki Street and Pago Bay, Ordot-Chalan Pago mayor Jessy Gogue reports that wasn't the case this time around. "We tried to maintain the vegetations in those areas so it would not flood, so we did pretty well yesterday," he explained.

Gogue says however what was a problem was overgrown vegetation that prompted power outages. "Basically this area of Ordot, which is called Famha, has been without power since this morning - they had an intermittent turn on mid morning yesterday, but again because of the vegetation it shorted them out and so they've been without power all of last night most of yesterday and in to the morning the power still hasn't been activated. So what we've been doing is working with the agencies the utility agencies and Public Works that are coming in to our villages to try to mitigate the problems that were caused by the storm, especially with vegetation," the mayor continued.

Gogue says it's a common problem for the village when heavy and strong winds roll through. "People don't realize that Ordot-Chalan Pago is still really rural, so we have a lot of rural residential areas so this is one of the main ones. So flooding wasn't as much of a problem as it has been in the past; it's really been just the vegetation and just vegetation management," he said.

As for other central villages like Barrigada, Tamuning, Sinajana and Hagatna, they too experienced intermittent power outages and flooding.