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posted by takyon on Thursday September 21 2017, @04:04PM   Printer-friendly
from the good-time-to-implement-strict-building-codes dept.

At 9PM ET September 20, ABC News reported

The island of Puerto Rico has been "destroyed" after Hurricane Maria made landfall there as a Category 4 storm Wednesday morning, according to emergency officials.

Puerto Rico's office of emergency management confirmed that 100 percent of the U.S. territory had lost power, noting that anyone with electricity was using a generator.

Multiple transmission lines sustained damage from the storm, said Ricardo Ramos, director of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority. Ramos said he hopes to begin launching helicopters by this weekends to begin inspecting the transmission lines.

Telecommunications throughout the island have "collapsed", Abner Gomez Cortes, executive director of Puerto Rico's office of emergency management and disaster administration agency, told ABC News.

[...] Cortes described Maria as an unprecedented storm, adding that the island had not seen a storm of that strength since 1928.

[...] Puerto Rico was still experiencing tropical-storm force winds Wednesday afternoon, forcing emergency services and search and rescue teams to wait before heading out to assess the damage, Cortes said.

More than 12,000 people are currently in shelters, and hospitals are now running on generators, Cortes said. Two hospitals--one in Caguas and one in Bayamon--have been damaged.

No deaths have been reported so far, but catastrophic flooding is currently taking place on the island. Multiple rain gauges have reported between 18 and 24 inches of rain, with some approaching the 30-inch mark over the last 24 hours.

Flooding is the danger "that will take lives", Cortes said, advising residents not to venture out of their homes until Thursday because "it is not safe to go out and observe".

[...] As of 8 p.m. ET, Maria had weakened to a Category 2 hurricane with maximum sustained wind of 110 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

[...] Some strengthening is possible now that the storm is back over the ocean, so Maria has potential to become a Category 3 hurricane again.

National Hurricane Center graphics for Maria.
Map of Caribbean Islands.

At 15:20 UTC, Mashable reported

Clips shot in the [cities] of Farjado, San Juan, and Guyama show buildings experiencing extreme structural damage. Doors are being ripped right off their hinges, and windows, walls, and roofs of homes, restaurants, and hotels are being stripped away by the storm's incredible power.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @09:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 21 2017, @09:14PM (#571408)

    If a snow storm hits Atlanta its an utter disaster, if a snow storm hits Chicago we (we in a general midwestern sense) are old school tough so its just BAU and nothing really bad happens.

    Whereas if a hurricane were to hit Chicago everybody would panic, where-as Atlanta just buckles down. Or if a magnitude 6 earthquake were to hit Chicago it would cause havoc, whereas Tokyo just continues on BAU.

    Your statement is more to do with the fact that Chicago gets snow all the time so has both the resources and the reason to dedicate those resources. Can you imagine the controversy and accusations of corruption if Atlanta spent $20 million a year for snow removal services?

    The difference isn't because the mid-west is somehow "better" than anywhere else. It's just they experience different disasters, and thus are prepared for different emergencies.

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