Early Wednesday morning, Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico as category 4 storm, according to The New York Times, after crossing the US Virgin Islands as a category 5 storm. As of 8:52 am, nine deaths were already confirmed, according to USA Today.
By 9 am, the winds had weakened from 155 mph to 145 mph, says CNN, but this change in wind speed offers little consolation to those in its path. At 145 mph, Maria is still capable of ripping roofs off of houses and snapping palm trees. Sixty-one percent of Puerto Rico’s electricity customers have already lost power, and it’s predicted that this power outage will soon hit the entire island.
WATCH: Floodwaters rush through streets of Guyama, Puerto Rico as Hurricane Maria strikes the island (via Cruz Rodriguez Keila) pic.twitter.com/apJvSRibDV
— NBC News (@NBCNews) September 20, 2017
This storm marks the third-strongest storm ever to make landfall in the US, the strongest storm to hit Puerto Rico in more than eighty years, and the first category 4 hurricane to hit Puerto Rico since 1932, according to The Washington Post. The effects have been absolutely devastating and it’s not over yet. Michael Brennan, a hurricane forecaster, tweeted last night that he was “starting to run out of adjectives for Maria” and called it “horrifying.”
Ricardo Rossello, Puerto Rico’s governor, also took to Twitter, explaining that “by 5 a.m., there were 11,229 people in shelters, and 580 pets" and requested that President Donald Trump declare Puerto Rico a disaster area.
Informo al Pueblo que acabo de solicitarle al Presidente Trump que declare a Puerto Rico Zona de Desastre @fema
— Ricardo Rossello (@ricardorossello) September 20, 2017
The Hurricane Center warns that the rain has the potential to "prompt numerous evacuations and rescues" as the streets may become "become rivers of raging water.” The National Weather Service has issued several flash flood warnings for Puerto Rico, stating that “residents living along streams and creeks should take immediate precautions to protect life and property.”
According to The Hurricane Center, Maria is expected to hit the Dominican Republic on Thursday and the Bahamas on Friday. However, we can’t know for certain what it will do in the long run.
The Maria recovery process in Puerto Rico is expected to take months, but there are a variety of ways that each of us can do our part to help. Global Giving has a goal of raising $2 million to “provide relief to survivors in the form of emergency supplies like food, water, and medicine in addition to longer-term recovery assistance to help residents recover and rebuild.”