Hurricane Maria devastates Puerto Rico, heads for Turks and Caicos

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Hurricane Maria devastates Puerto Rico, heads for Turks and Caicos

By Dave Graham and Robin Respaut

 

Residents working on their roof in badly damaged neighborhood are seen from a Marine Corps MV-22 Osprey surveying the aftermath from Hurricane Maria in St. Croix, , U.S. Virgin Islands, September 21, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake

 

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Hurricane Maria destroyed buildings and knocked out power across Puerto Rico before flooding parts of the Dominican Republic and then regaining some of its strength as it approached the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeastern Bahamas on Thursday night.

 

The second major hurricane to rage through the Caribbean this month, Maria has killed at least 18 people and devastated several small islands, including St. Croix in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Dominica.

 

Maria is now a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds of up to 125 miles per hour (205 km per hour) and is 80 miles (130 km) southeast of Grand Turk Island, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

 

It is expected to bring 24 to 38 inches (61 to 97 cm) of rain to Puerto Rico and 8 to 16 inches (20 to 40 cm) to the Turks and Caicos, which could cause flash floods and mudslides, the NHC said.

 

Maria's strength was not expected to change during the next few days, the centre said. The storm looked unlikely to hit the continental United States.

 

Officials in Puerto Rico were assessing the damage after Maria slammed the island on Wednesday with winds of up to 155 mph (250 kph). Ranked a Category 4 storm when it made landfall, it was the strongest hurricane to hit the island in nearly 90 years.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters the island had been "totally obliterated" and that he planned to visit.

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello said there was one death reported so far, a man struck by a piece of lumber hurled by high winds.

 

"It's nothing short of a major disaster," he told CNN, adding it might take months for electricity to be completely restored to the island, which has a population of 3.4 million. He imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew through Saturday.

 

Maria struck Dominica as a Category 5 storm on Monday night, damaging about 95 percent of the roofs on the island, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. At least 14 people died, CNN quoted Charles Jong, a spokesman for the Dominica prime minister's office, as saying.

 

Two people were killed in the French territory of Guadeloupe and one person on the U.S. Virgin Islands.

 

ROADS BLOCKED, COMMUNICATIONS DOWN

 

Utility crews from the U.S. mainland were headed to Puerto Rico to help try to restore the battered power grid and the U.S. military sent ground forces and aircraft to assist with search and rescue.

 

More than 95 percent of wireless cell sites were not working on Thursday afternoon on the island, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, more than three-quarters of cell sites are out of service.

 

Puerto Rico was already facing the largest municipal debt crisis in U.S. history, and a team of judges overseeing its bankruptcy has advised involved parties to put legal proceedings on hold indefinitely as the island recovers, according to a source familiar with the proceedings.

 

In the historic heart of the island's capital San Juan, which has a fort and buildings from the Spanish colonial era, the storm left a litter of wreckage.

 

Roads were blocked by downed foliage and firefighters and rescue officials wielded chain saws to cut through the debris.

 

San Juan airport reopened for military and relief flights on Thursday, with plans for a limited resumption of commercial flights on Friday.

 

With electricity and communications knocked out across the island, workdays evaporated and people busied themselves with securing food, checking on their battered homes and collecting rain water.

 

South of the capital in Cataño, about 10 residents whose homes were flooded sat around a pickup truck on the edge of the waters and mixed a cocktail of grapefruit juice, cranberry, ice and vodka that they called "matatiempo" or "killing time."

 

'WORST IS BEHIND US'

 

Maria passed close by the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix, home to about 55,000 people, early on Wednesday as a rare and ferocious Category 5 storm, knocking out electricity and most mobile phone service.

 

"The worst is behind us," Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp told reporters on Thursday. "Now is (the) time to march forward and build a better community, a better territory."

 

About 600 people throughout the U.S. Virgin Islands are in emergency shelters and many parts are without power, Mapp said.

 

"It's going to be a long road to recovery," Mapp said. "It ain't going to happen in a week or two and it definitely ain't going to happen in a few months."

 

Maria hit about two weeks after Hurricane Irma pounded two other U.S. Virgin Islands: St. Thomas and St. John.

 

Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, killed at least 84 people in the Caribbean and the United States. It followed Harvey, which killed more than 80 people when it hit Texas in late August and caused historic flooding in Houston. More than two months remain in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

 

(Reporting by Dave Graham and Robin Respaut in San Juan; Additional reporting by Jorge Pineda in Santo Domingo, Nick Brown in Houston, Devika Krishna Kumar in New York and Steve Gorman and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Writing by Scott Malone and Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Jonathan Oatis and James Dalgleish)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-09-22

[Speedo1968]

My heart goes out to all the people affected.  Being mountainous and with roads narrow and a small airport etc relief will be difficult.  I have family through marriage in Dominica and had seriously looked at settling there to retire.  Having been involved in farming since 1960 a small holding was my dream.  It is a beautiful country, and was an eco-tourists paradise with much to do and see by ways of walking, no night life and only one hotel and one small resort.    You could drink the water from the 300 + rivers.  The only road along the coast line and around the island never joined up, often damage by storms.

 

[ilostmypassword]

1. The Law Strangling Puerto Rico

After World War I, America was worried about German U-boats, which had sunk nearly 5,000 ships during the war. Congress enacted the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, a.k.a. the Jones Act, to ensure that the country maintained a shipbuilding industry and seafaring labor force...

Thanks to the law, the price of goods from the United States mainland is at least double that in neighboring islands, including the United States Virgin Islands, which are not covered by the Jones Act. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/25/opinion/hurricane-puerto-rico-jones-act.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=opinion-c-col-right-region&region=opinion-c-col-right-region&WT.nav=opinion-c-col-right-region

 

[pegman]

Has anyone informed Trump of the damage?

[iReason]

13 "Tweets" about Football and not a word, not a speech not a "Tweet",

nothing about Puerto Rico for 5 days from the occupier of the White House.

There are 3.5 Million Americans on the devastated island with no power or water.

 

 

[Jingthing]

The clown potus recently "discovered" that Puerto Ricans are American citizens. 

Yes, so far the recovery assistance there has been shabby but there is room for optimism.

The republicans realize that if they don't give enough help, there will be a massive wave of Puerto Ricans to FLORIDA that will make Florida a blue state. I realize people will attack me for saying it, but republicans are saying it too. It's out there. 

There is no getting around the POLITICS in anything in American life these days. 

In any case, this really is a devastatingly historic event for Puerto Rico.

I wonder in the long run how it will impact on either their independence movement or their statehood movement. Of course, a republican controlled government will never let them become a state, but republican control won't last forever.