Sonny Raguindin remembers taking refuge with his daughter at their church the morning of Oct. 25 as violent winds and heavy rains destroyed their home about four miles away. Storms aren’t out of the ordinary for Raguindin, who grew up in the Philippines and has lived on the Pacific Island of Saipan for the last 16 years. But Raguindin said Super Typhoon Yutu, which hit the U.S. commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands in October, was unlike anything he had ever experienced. "I’ve never experienced a typhoon this strong, even in the Philippines," he said in Filipino. "This is the first time I've experienced a typhoon where I felt really scared." With maximum sustained winds of 180 miles per hour , Super Typhoon Yutu may be the strongest storm to ever hit the Northern Mariana Islands — an archipelago of 14 islands in the Western Pacific — according to NASA. After the storm died down, Raguindin returned home to find an unsalvageable pile of rubble. His house's walls had collapsed, he said, the roof was gone and all his belongings had been blown away. Raguindin is among at least a few thousand commonwealth residents who lost their homes in the… Read full this story
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