Admin l Wednesday, September 20, 2017
PUERTO RICO – Hurricane Maria today made land falls in Puerto Rico as a category 4 storm, pulling down structures and in the process leaving residents of the Island without power.
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.
Telecommunications throughout the island have “collapsed,” Abner Gomez Cortes, executive director of Puerto Rico’s office of emergency management and disaster administration, told ABC News.
According to him, Maria is an unprecedented storm the island had not seen since 1928.
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. The expected 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.”
“We will rebuild our island with federal and state fund, hard work and the spirit of all Puerto Ricans citizens,” Cortes said.
