Category 4 Hurricane Maria heads for Puerto Rico

AFTER devastating Dominica and Guadeloupe, and battering St Croix in the US Virgin Islands, Hurricane Maria is whipping Puerto Rico’s Vieques island.

The British Virgin Islands, Dominican Republic, Turks and Caicos Islands and a section of Bahamas have issued hurricane warnings.

St Croix was earlier spared the eye of the hurricane, which skirted the south of the island. But, the winds and rains accompanying Maria’s eyewall lashed the island.

The now-Category 4 hurricane is packing maximum sustained winds of 250km/h and moving towards Puerto Rico, where it was expected to make landfall in a few hours.

Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rossello said: “Luckily, our team planned and assessed for it. We were thinking of really bizarre scenarios occurring and one of them was getting back-to-back storms in Puerto Rico.

“This is very dangerous… You can replace infrastructure, you can’t replace lives. So let’s focus on the next 72 hours on saving lives. Let’s weather the storm and then let’s start rebuilding.”

Puerto Rican officials warned residents to leave their homes ahead of the hurricane’s impending impact. “You have to evacuate, otherwise, you’re going to die,” Puerto Rico’s public safety officer, said. “I don’t know how to make this any clearer.”

Over 4 000 people have already moved into official emergency shelters, Rossello posted earlier to his Twitter account.