20 September 2017•Update: 21 September 2017
By Canberk Yuksel
NEW YORK
Puerto Rico’s 3.3 million residents are without power Wednesday after Hurricane Maria pounded the U.S. territory with a force not seen in decades.
Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico as an extremely dangerous Category 4 storm after killing seven people on the Caribbean island of Dominica, according to Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne.
Its winds broke two National Hurricane Center (NHC) radars in Puerto Rico, where more than 10,000 people are in shelters, according to Governor Ricardo Rossello.
Rossello's spokesman, Carlos Mercader, called Maria a hurricane of "historic proportions", according to media reports.
The eye of the storm left Puerto Rico Wednesday afternoon, and Maria is moving on a northwest projection at a speed of 12 miles per hour (19 kilometers per hour), according to the NHC. It is packing sustained maximum winds of 110 miles per hour (177 ).
The agency said the storm continues to trigger "catastrophic flash flooding" over portions of Puerto Rico.
Maria is the first Category 4 storm to hit the U.S. territory since 1932. It made landfall with winds of 155 miles per hour (250 ) that later slowed to 145 mph (233 ). The NHC warned that a deadly storm surge could reach 9 feet (2.7 meters) on the coast.
A Category 4 hurricane is defined by the NHC as being able to rip off roofs of well-built framed homes, causing power outages.
"Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months," NHC guidelines say.
Puerto Rico is still recovering from Hurricane Irma, which hit two weeks ago and caused up to $1 billion in damage, according to the Bloomberg news agency.
