HONOLULU — Residents of the Northern Mariana Islands braced Friday for months without electricity or running water after the strongest storm to hit any part of the United States this year devastated the U.S. territory, killing one person, officials said.

Even after Super Typhoon Yutu had moved away from the Pacific islands, emergency management officials warned residents to stay indoors because downed power lines blocked roads and winds were still strong enough to make driving dangerous.

A 44-year-old woman taking shelter in an abandoned building died when it collapsed in the storm, a post on the governor’s office Facebook page said.

The territory will need significant help to recover from the storm, said Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan, the territory’s delegate to Congress.

He said Thursday that there were reports of injuries and that people were waiting to be treated at a hospital on the territory’s largest and most populated island, Saipan.

“There’s a lot of damage and destruction,” Sablan said from Saipan. “It’s like a small war just passed through.”

The islands’ emergency management agency was “deploying resources to clear our roadways so first responders can begin assisting residents who have lost their homes and for those who need transport to seek medical attention or transportation to the nearest shelter,” spokeswoman Nadine Deleon Guerrero said.

Sablan said he has not been able to reach officials on the islands of Tinian and Rota because phones and power are out. “It’s going to take weeks probably to get electricity back to everybody,” he said.