Maria piles misery on top of misery for Puerto Rico still reeling from Irma
Flash floods caused by Hurricane Maria brought more misery to Puerto Rico yesterday after the storm destroyed the island’s infrastructure and left its 3.4 million people without electricity.
US president Donald Trump said the hurricane had “absolutely obliterated” the island and declared the US territory a disaster zone, a move that will free up emergency relief funding.
“Puerto Rico is in a very, very, very tough shape,” he said.
Maria has caused at least 17 deaths in the Caribbean, including a man in northern Puerto Rico’s Bayamon district who was struck by a board he had used to cover his windows.
Although the storm had moved back out to sea, authorities declared a flash flood warning for all of Puerto Rico as torrential rains continued to lash the island.
“If possible, move to higher ground NOW!” the national weather service station in San Juan tweeted, describing the flooding as catastrophic.
Puerto Rico was expected to take between 510 and 760 millimetres of rain by tomorrow, with some isolated areas receiving even more, the national hurricane centre said.
The rain had turned some roads into muddy rivers, impassable to all but the largest vehicles.
Toppled trees, street signs and power cables were strewn across roads.
Although Maria had passed over Puerto Rico and lost some of its power, it was still generating strong winds and moving north towards the Turks and Caicos Islands after brushing the Dominican Republic.
Puerto Rico’s governor, Ricardo Rossello, who called Maria “the most devastating storm in a century”, said the island was contending with mass flooding and a total breakdown of its power and telecommunications infrastructure.
Ricardo Ramos, who heads the island’s electricity board, said the network had been “totally destroyed” and it could take months before power was fully restored.
In San Juan, where tens of thousands sat out the storm in shelters or else stayed in their homes, residents told of their terrifying ordeals.
“This was absolutely the worst experience we’ve had with a hurricane,” said Kim Neis, an American who has lived on the island for 30 years.
“None of the others were anything like as intense as this.”
Mr Rossello imposed a 6pm to 6am curfew until tomorrow and warned of mudslides.
“I urge the people of Puerto Rico to commit to peace, understanding, and good judgment during these difficult times for our island,” he said.
There were reports of looting, and authorities said 10 people had been arrested.
The US national hurricane centre said Maria was about 200km north of Punta Cana, on the east coast of the Dominican Republic, yesterday and hitting the popular tourist area with wind gusts of 93kph.
The hurricane was expected to bring storm surges of up to 2 metres to the Dominican Republic, it said.
About 1,255 homes in the Dominican Republic were damaged by the storm, the country’s centre for emergency operations said.
Maria, which could strengthen over the next few days, was forecast to move north in the Atlantic Ocean over the weekend, the NHC said, but looked unlikely to hit the continental United States.
It was a Category 5 storm when it struck Dominica on Monday night, damaging about 95 per cent of the roofs on the island of 73,000 people, one of the poorest in the Caribbean, the UN office for the co-ordination of humanitarian affairs said.
At least 14 people died on the island, a spokesman for its prime minister said.
Two people were killed in the French territory of Guadeloupe.
The governor of the US Virgin Islands ordered a round-theclock curfew on St Croix until further notice, saying that having anyone on the roads would hamper clean-up efforts after Maria passed west of the island on Wednesday.
As many as 70 per cent of buildings on the island, which is home to about 55,000 people, were damaged, said Holland Redfield.
The US and British Virgin Islands were also hit this month by Hurricane Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record. It left a trail of destruction in several Caribbean islands and Florida, killing at least 84 people.