That year was a banner year for tourism with 109,368 visitors to Guam in November – one of Guam’s best November numbers. You can imagine what happened after that.
My husband Ken and I were determined to host our traditional Christmas Day gathering in 1997 – with power or not – and we did. Our sodas and beverages were chilled by our favorite Tumon neighborhood bar and bar team; we had light from the car battery, and nobody came empty handed. Our friends with a working gas oven brought the turkey.
I remember typhoons Chata’an and Pongsona and now I can add Typhoon Mawar. This typhoon was different – the first time we lost water.
And it will be different for Guam. We are not coming off a banner month or a banner fiscal year for tourism, as we did in 1997.
And the typhoon is another blow just as tourism was returning after the pandemic. Photos of the island’s devastation are everywhere – in our pages and shared on social media.
Several of our family and friends reached out after I sent them links to MBJ news updates – which was quicker than tapping out WhatsApp messages as media began carrying the news of the typhoon.
My son asked from Philadelphia if FEMA had arrived yet. My daughter in Amsterdam sent encouragement. Neither of them will forget their Guam typhoon experiences.
Friends in Saipan sympathized and compared Mawar to Typhoon Yutu, which hit the Northern Mariana Islands in 2018.
But really it was the sheer niceness, humor and how are you’ s that came our way from Hawaii, the Philippines and just about everywhere we have readers and advertisers that buoyed me, along with the messages of re-openings and support, asking about our house (wet, but still roofed) and thumbs up and reminders of how resilient we are in the islands.
Thank you then and a shout out to all my chat groups – particularly to my family group – Photos of the Kids, and the prolific Perez Acres Neighborhood Watch.
Notables as I write are Director General Paul Chen and the team at the Taiwan Economic and Cultural Office in Guam that speedily coordinated a breathtaking $20,000 donation to the Guam Chapter of the American Red Cross.
Also, Mike Hernandez and Anna Gera-Van Seters from South Pacific Petroleum Corp. – working hard on the front lines at Ocean Vista 76/Circle K; our printers – the Guam Daily Post and Graphic Center Inc.
Thanks to all of the Glimpses Media and support teams: to IT, who checked and fixed our systems; HR, who supported everybody with everything; Creative, who somehow managed to well, create our products, despite needing to dry out some of their computers; our Sales team, who worried about their clients more than themselves; and the News team, who swung into action to produce your online updates and the news for this paper.
Also, a sincere thank you to everybody in government and the communities of the region who took our calls, sent updates and their marketing messages (and all those emojis), worked long and late, and asked after our sister companies in our group (which are alive and kicking and doing what they do best – providing food and beverages). mbj
— Maureen N. Maratita is the publisher at Glimpses Media. Publications at Glimpses Media include the Marianas Business Journal, MBJ Life, The Real Estate Journal, Guam Business Magazine, Beach Road Magazine, Buenas and Drive Guam.