Hurricane Maria Update

Sept. 23, 2017 — Hurricane Maria is expected to weaken over the next two days, but the Category 3 hurricane still socked the Turks and Caicos yesterday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Maria's core left the Turks and Caicos in a north-northwestward direction and was gradually moving away from the Bahamas, the center said in its 8 p.m. advisory.

The death toll from the hurricane is at least 24, including 15 in Dominica, seven in Puerto Rico and two in Guadeloupe.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico, which has had its entire electrical grid knocked off by Maria, is dealing with the aftermath of her fury. According to the United States Army Corps of Engineers, Guajataca Dam is in "imminent danger" of collapsing, and upwards of 70,000 people could be impacted. The dam, which is an earthen structure, 120 feet high and nearly 1,000 feet long, was built nearly 100 years ago by the Army Corps of Engineers. It is now owned by the local power authority.

Guajataca Dam, which lies across the Guajataca River in the northwestern part of the island, holds about 11 billion gallons of water that is used for drinking, irrigation and power generation.

HURRICANE MARIA THROUGH THE EYES OF SOCIAL MEDIA. IT'S A HEART-WRENCHING LOOK AT HER DAMAGE.

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Sept. 22, 2017 — Hurricane Maria hit the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Category 3 storm today, and is now heading toward the Bahamas.

The storm was about 395 miles east-southeast of Nassau in the Bahamas by late afternoon, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Maria has maximum sustained winds of 125 miles an hour.

The storm shut down Puerto Rico's entire electrical grid. The storm hit the U.S. Territory as a Category 4 hurricane, making it the most powerful storm to strike the island since a 1928 hurricane that killed 300 people.

To make matters worse, Puerto Rico's Guajataca Dam is in imminent danger of failing, causing life-threatening flash flooding downstream on the Rio Guajataca River in the northwest part of the island. Thousands of residents were urged to evacuate due to the potential of life-threatening flash floods.

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Hurricane Maria is now a category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph, but remains a powerful and deadly hurricane, according to the U.S. NOAA National Hurricane Center.

During its 5 a.m. update, the NHC said, “On the forecast track, the eye of Maria will make landfall in Puerto Rico in a couple of hours, cross Puerto Rico today, and pass just north of the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic tonight and Thursday.”

Maria was a Category 5 hurricane when it slammed into Dominica (pronounced DOM-i-NEE-kə) early Tuesday morning. After passing over the Eastern Caribbean island nation of 72,000 people, it was downgraded to a Cat 4 storm. On Twitter, the NY Times showed Maria as it passed over Dominica:

Maria began pounding the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix early on Wednesday, as it continued on its north-westerly path through the Atlantic Ocean. St. Croix had been impacted by Hurricane Irma, but was spared the catastrophic damage suffered by its sister islands, St. Thomas and St. John.

Maria is projected to make a direct hit on Puerto Rico at around 8 a.m. EST. The U.S. territory's 3.5 million residents have been urged to seek shelter amid fears heavy rain could cause landslides and storm surges of up to 9 feet could swamp low-lying areas.

Maria has already claimed one life, as officials on the French island of Guadeloupe confirmed a person was killed by a falling tree, and another two are missing after their boat sank.

Damage on the British Virgin Islands is unclear after Maria skirted past early on Wednesday. "Our islands are extremely vulnerable right now," the BVI's premier Orlando Smith said in a statement, warning that the storm could turn debris left by Irma into dangerous projectiles.

The Fate of Dominica Post-Maria

The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Committee (CODEMA) said that first-aid supplies were delivered via a helicopter that landed in Dominica on Tuesday afternoon, after an unsuccessful attempt earlier in the day.

It also delivered essential communications equipment to the island, which has had no contact with the outside world since the hurricane hit.

The helicopter also took Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, who lost his own house in the hurricane, on an aerial tour of the devastated island. The first video footage of the devastation left behind by Hurricane Maria has been trickling out via social media.

The latest information coming out of Dominica is mostly from amateur radio operators, as all electricity, internet coverage and phone signal has collapsed. On Twitter, @Miss_JacquiB shared a portion of a tweet from a Dominica ham radio operator:

Aerial video footage also has started popping up on Twitter:

There are fears that hundreds may have died on the island, where the hospital was demolished by 160-200 mph winds.