It’s been two weeks since Supertyphoon Bavi swept through the Mariana Islands.
The eye of the storm passed directly over the island of Rota and battered the region, which was still in the midst of recovering from Super Typhoon Sinlaku in April.
Guam has been serving as the staging area for recovering efforts since, hosting both FEMA disaster workers and the American Red Cross.
HPR travelled to Guam to speak with Ken Quintanilla, executive director of the American Red Cross Guam Chapter.
Interview Highlights
On recovering from back-to-back typhoons
KEN QUINTANILLA: Volunteers were here for Typhoon Sinlaku, but surprisingly, also volunteers that helped during Typhoon Mawar in 2023 deployed back again. So they were familiar with the shelters, they were familiar with the streets and the areas that were struck hard before. They were familiar with the people as well, and most of all, they were familiar with our culture and the way that our people respond as well. So it's been very reassuring and hopeful to have such great people back on our island to support.
… Everyone is still on the road to recovery. … We're very familiar with who the clients were from Sinlaku to now, so we're kind of serving the same people in addition to others who have dealt with this second blow with Bavi. So the sentiment though has just been hope and resiliency and coming together.
On the current status of residents in storm shelters
QUINTANILLA: There's currently over 400, I believe 462 as of today, in six Red Cross-managed shelters on Guam. We have two Tier II shelters, and that's a bigger portion of the population. So we have a shelter at the Ordot-Chalan Pago Multipurpose Emergency Shelter. There's 203 there. We're also utilizing the Astumbo gym up north in Dededo, and that has 128, so about a little over 300 of shelter residents here on Guam. Every day, I've been visiting the shelter since we opened last week, and it's been great to see our teams connecting with them, providing feedings. We just started shelter resident transition today, as they call it, SRT, and it's basically our teams getting to connect and interview the clients one on one to find out: 'What do you need to get home?'
On how to help
QUINTANILLA: The two biggest things that we're asking of people is one: Volunteer. So you can go to redcross.org to find volunteer opportunities, and training will be available for you. We have our disaster event-based volunteers. Basically, if you want to volunteer one time or become a general volunteer, we'll find an opportunity for you — whether it's feeding, working in the shelters, answering phones, distributing emergency supplies or clean up kits, or just working with the people. And then the second way to help is by donating. We've put together a special designation for Typhoon Bavi, just like we did with Sinlaku. And so you can go to our website at redcross.org, click on that link, and they'll be able to help you on how to support and donate for this operation. Whether you're an individual or a big corporation, any kind of support is definitely going to be appreciated.
More information on how to volunteer or donate to Super Typhoon Bavi recovery efforts can be found on the American Red Cross website.
This story aired on The Conversation on July 21, 2026. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Jinwook Lee adapted this story for the web.
