Puerto Rico Remains Entirely Without Power As It Assesses Damage From Hurricane Maria
This post was updated on Thursday, September 21 at 11:30 AM.
Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico early Wednesday morning. With winds reaching 155 miles per hour, the storm was the first Category 4 hurricane to strike the US territory since 1932. The hurricane had already ravaged the island nation of Dominica and the French region of Guadeloupe, leaving sixteen people dead, by the time Maria hit Puerto Rico. Here's what we know about Maria's impact on Puerto Rico.
Maria Was The Third Strongest Hurricane Ever To Make Landfall In The US
Maria hit Puerto Rico with extremely low air pressure, making it one of the strongest hurricanes ever to affect the United States.
Previously a Category 5 storm with 175 mph winds, Maria hit Puerto Rico as the third strongest storm to make landfall in the United States based on a key measurement that meteorologists use: air pressure. The lower the central pressure a storm the stronger it is and Maria's pressure was 917 millibars, lower than Irma's U.S. landfall of 929 millibars in the Florida Keys earlier this month.
[ABC 11]
Satellite images show Maria completely enveloping the main island of Puerto Rico on Wednesday morning.
Thousands Of Puerto Rico's 3.4 Million Residents Evacuated Ahead Of The Storm
Thousands of Puerto Ricans headed to 500 emergency shelters to ride out the storm, with governor Ricardo Rosselló tweeting early Wednesday morning, "As of 2:30 a.m. we count 10,059 refugees and 189 pets (in shelters)" (per CNN's translation). He later said the real number of people in shelters was likely higher, according to The New York Times. The evacuations followed an ominous warning from another official.
As Maria approached, Héctor Pesquera, Puerto Rico's chief public safety official, said those in low-lying areas needed to evacuate or they would die. "I don't know how to make this any clearer," he told Telemundo, NBC's Spanish-language network.
The Entire Island Is Without Power And Could Remain That Way For Months
Wednesday afternoon, officials said that the entire island was without electricity.
Abner Gómez, head of the disaster management agency, said the hurricane had damaged "everything in it's path".
None of the customers of Puerto Rico's Electric Power Authority had any electricity, he said.
"The information we received is not encouraging," he told a briefing, urging people to stay in their homes.
[BBC News]
On Thursday, Puerto Rico remained completely without power.
Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico's nonvoting member of the House of Representatives, told CNN on Thursday that the island appeared to have been "devastated," with power lines lying on the ground and rivers flowing over bridges…
She suggested that without electricity, many of the pumps that supplied residents with running water would not be functioning…
Ricardo Ramos, the director of the government-owned Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, told CNN on Thursday that the island's power infrastructure had been basically "destroyed."
The hurricane came at a time when the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority was already in bad shape.
The utility filed for bankruptcy in July, after years of underinvestment that yielded a system it called "degraded and unsafe." …
The island could be faced with outages for weeks, straining the resources of a utility whose power plants have a median age of 44 years, compared with an industry average of 18 years, and more frequent power outages. PREPA said in a draft fiscal plan released in April that "years of underinvestment have led to severe degradation of infrastructure."
[Reuters]
Photos And Videos Show Devastating Flooding Across Puerto Rico
On Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center warned of catastrophic flooding.
The Hurricane Center warned that the rain — possibly exceeding 25 inches in some places — may "prompt numerous evacuations and rescues" and "enter numerous structures within multiple communities," adding that streets and parking lots may "become rivers of raging water" and warning some structures will become "uninhabitable or washed away."
On Thursday, additional flooding remained a threat.
Flash flood warnings covered the entirety of Puerto Rico on Thursday. Forecasters say Puerto Rico will see about two feet of rain by Friday, with as much as 35 inches in places.
Images and footages emerging from Puerto Rico confirm that much of the island has faced extreme flooding. This video from the Holiday Inn in San Juan shows a major thoroughfare converted into a river as violent winds blow:
A video from Guayama, on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, shows dangerously deep, fast-moving floodwaters.
A similar scene in the central eastern town of Gurabo leaves little doubt that Maria is leaving enormous destruction in its wake.
At Least One Person Died In Puerto Rico During The Hurricane
Governor Rosselló confirmed one death on the island but stressed that communication outages made it difficult to get information about other possible deaths across the commonwealth.
Rosselló told CNN that at least one person died in the storm when a board was ripped from the house it had been nailed to by the wind and hit a man. The governor said the number of casualties in some areas is unknown because it is hard to communicate."We still don't have a lot of information," he said. "We're virtually disconnected in terms of communications with the southeast part of the island."
[CNN]
President Trump Declared Puerto Rico A Disaster Zone On Wednesday Night
At the request of Governor Rosselló, Donald Trump declared Puerto Rico a disaster zone on Wednesday night, freeing up federal funds for recovery efforts.
Puerto Rico's governor, Ricardo Rosselló, ordered a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew to remain in place at least until Saturday. Late Wednesday, President Trump declared a "major disaster" in Puerto Rico and directed additional federal funds to help in the recovery, a White House statement said.
After Hitting Puerto Rico, Maria Strengthened Again To A Category 3 Hurricane
The threat from Maria is not over, as it regained strength to the east of the Dominican Republic and continued heading north toward Turks and Caicos.
The latest update from the National Hurricane Center at 5 a.m. shows maximum sustained winds for Maria are now 115 mph. The storm returned to major hurricane status after moving back over open water before it is expected to affect Turks and Caicos Thursday night…
The storm is expected to strengthen over the next day or two as it moves north, the National Weather Service said. The storm could be a high-end Category 3 or low-end Category 4 storm while it passes Turks and Caicos. Beyond Turks and Caicos the hurricane is likely to weaken as it moves between Bermuda and the U.S. East Coast.
[ABC News]
