Typhoon Pongsona hit Guam on Sunday (local time), covering the islands for hours and blasting some spots with wind gusts up to 184 mph, officials said.

Gov. Carl Gutierrez, in a letter asking President Bush to declare Guam a federal disaster area, said it will take some time to determine the typhoon's full impact on infrastructure because of the extent of the damage and the limited number of engineers on island.

There were no deaths reported, though the entire island is without electricity and water and sewer systems aren't expected to be fully operational for several weeks, he said.

"There is no doubt that the impact of this latest storm will be devastating," Gutierrez said in the letter.

By 5:30 a.m. (2:30 p.m. EST), the storm was about 100 miles due west of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands but still churning winds of about 150 mph as it moved north by northwest, said Capt. Robert Leejoice of the Joint Typhoon Warning Center in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The National Weather Service on Guam forecast winds of 40 mph to 60 mph on Monday with gusts as high as 70 mph.

"The situation is that we have a very severe storm lasting for a very long time," said governor's spokesman John Ryan. "After a storm of this severity, we are looking at a lot of damage – a lot of things loose and to the point where 40 mile winds and 50 mile gusts might snap something off that normally it would not."

Guam is a U.S. territory located west of the international date line, about 3,700 miles southwest of Hawaii.

The storm's eye crossed the northern end of Guam, but the entire island was hit by at least part of the storms' eye wall, which contains the strongest winds.

The eye of the typhoon passed in part over Dededo, Astumbo, Las Palmas, Latte Heights and other northern locations.

Eight people reported missing after a fire at the tank farm operated by Mobil Oil Micronesia were later accounted for, officials said.

"People I've called in the central area had the hard winds that broke windows and came through the houses like poltergeists," said Becky

Quichocho a resident of Baza Gardens. Barrigada resident Jackie Cabreras said her brother's house lost its

roof and his mother-in-law also lost part of the roof. "They ran over here during the typhoon," she said. "When they were

running here, the wind was pushing against them. My other brother had to go out to the porch to pull them into the house."

By Sunday evening, response coordinators at the Civil Defense Command Center in Agana Heights had received eyewitness accounts of downed utility poles and tree limbs, tin, wood and other debris, Ryan said.

There was an eyewitness account of a badly damaged and possibly destroyed home in Yigo and there also was flooding in numerous parts of the island, he said.

All Guam schools are expected to be closed Monday, includingn Department of Defense schools.

The Department of Education said at least four schools serving as shelters reached capacity Sunday, but four others were opened to accommodate people seeking shelter from Pongsona.