The trucks and crews from GPA were originally deployed to the CNMI to help with restoration efforts in the aftermath of April’s Super Typhoon Sinlaku. It was a highly visible example of the Leon Guerrero - Tenorio administration’s good neighbor policy and mutual aid arrangement with our northern neighbor.
Governor Leon Guerrero, who had been monitoring the progress of the barge carrying the truck home throughout a busy day that included recovery updates and meetings with federal officials, congratulated the team effort that made the return of the vehicles possible one week to the day after Guam returned to Condition Of Readiness 4 (COR 4) from Super Typhoon Bavi.
“We work together,” said the Governor in a late night text chat to dozens of key government agency officials. “This is what the Lg/Tenorio administration does. Welcome home.”
William Hague, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Insular, International, and Ocean Affairs at the Department of the Interior, sat in on one of those meetings this morning and during which an update on the vehicle’s return journey to Guam was provided to the Governor and Lt. Governor.
“Guam has a well-documented history of sending our highly capable and widely respected utility crews to disasters elsewhere, both regionally and as far as away as the U.S. mainland and islands in the Caribbean,” stated Lt. Governor Tenorio. “And it’s a two way arrangement, as there have been disasters here when utility crews from near and far have come and helped us.”
The return of the trucks was a joint partnership between several government agencies, including GPA, the Port Authority, Customs and Quarantine Agency, and GFD to name a handful.
Practically nobody could have predicted the lineman trucks would be needed back home for another Super Typhoon within weeks of deployment to Saipan, where they played a crucial role in speeding that island’s recovery and restoration from Sinlaku.
Soon the vehicles will be back in service here on their home turf of Guam. It is noteworthy that even without the trucks here GPA announced almost a week to the hour that Guam returned to COR 4 it had restored power to 90% of the island. Phase III of the utilities recover, restore, and reconnect effort is well underway with focus on some of the hardest hit areas and isolated pockets of lingering power outages.
