Less than 24 hours ago, Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico's eastern edge at 6:15 a.m. local time. When the storm passed over, satellite images put the size of the massive hurricane in perspective as it dwarfed the island of Puerto Rico.
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More than 12,000 people are currently being housed in shelters after their homes were utterly destroyed by the storm. All of the shelters are running on generators since 100 percent of the island is without power after Hurricane Maria downed hundreds of power lines. To make matters worse, two of the islands critical hospitals have been damaged, one in Caguas and one in Bayamon. So far only one death has been reported as a result of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
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<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit: Carlos Garcia Rawlins</span>
The governer of Puerto Rico Ricardo Rossello announced on Twitter that a curfew is in effect starting at 6 p.m.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="es" dir="ltr">Mantener el orden resulta fundamental para que autoridades puedan ejecutar apropiadamente.Por tanto, ordeno Toque de Queda efectivo hoy 6pm</p>— Ricardo Rossello (@ricardorossello) <a href="https://twitter.com/ricardorossello/status/910593581806649344">September 20, 2017</a></blockquote>
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Damages from the storm are extensive, storefronts are missing, trees and power lines are down throughout the whole island, and whole neighborhoods are waist-deep with floodwaters. Many homes that were not built to code were completely destroyed, which amounted to shacks with metal siding for roofs. The storm surge reached 6 to 9 feet in coastal Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Rainfall was as much as 35 inches in isolated areas and officials estimate that around 80 percent of the islands homes were destroyed by the flooding.
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<span style="margin-top:15px;rgba(42,51,6,0.7);font-size:12px;">Credit: Splash News</span>
Hurricane Maria also left multiple other islands devastated in the last 36 hours including Dominica. Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency shared this video showing the severity of the devastation.
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Hurricane Maria is expected to pass to the east of Turks and Caicos next, from there it is projected to pass by the southeast islands of the Bahamas eventually making its way towards the east coast of the United States.
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