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Hurricane Maria barrelled towards the Turks and Caicos on Friday after lashing Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands with winds and rain that destroyed homes, caused flooding, devastated economies and left at least 32 people dead.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico: Hurricane Maria barrelled towards the Turks and Caicos on Friday after lashing Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands with winds and rain that destroyed homes, caused flooding, devastated economies and left at least 32 people dead.

Maria is the second major hurricane to hit the Caribbean this month and the strongest storm to hit the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico in nearly 90 years. It knocked out the island's power and several rivers hit record flood levels.

At least 15 people were killed in Puerto Rico, El Nuevo Día‏ newspaper reported.

Fourteen deaths were reported on the island nation of Dominica, which has a population of about 71,000. Two others were killed in the French territory of Guadeloupe and one on the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The death toll in the Caribbean is likely to rise when searches resume at daybreak.

Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew through Saturday for the island's 3.4 million people.

"If it is not an emergency situation, people should remain in their homes or shelters," he was quoted as saying by El Nuevo Día.

Among those killed in Puerto Rico were eight people who drowned in Toa Baja, about 20 miles (32 km) west of San Juan, Mayor Bernardo Márquez told the newspaper.

More than 4,000 people were rescued from flooded areas of Toa Baja, he was quoted as saying.

Three elderly sisters were killed by a mudslide on Wednesday in the mountainous central municipality of Utuado, El Nuevo Día said, citing relatives and the mayor of Utuado.

In the heart of the island's capital San Juan, which has a fort and buildings from the Spanish colonial era, the storm left a trail of wreckage. Toppled trees cut power lines and streets were turned into rivers.

U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters the island had been "totally obliterated" and he planned to visit.

Puerto Rico was already facing the largest municipal debt crisis in U.S. history.

A team of judges overseeing its bankruptcy has advised involved parties to put legal proceedings on hold indefinitely as the island recovers, according to a source familiar with the proceedings.

Maria is a Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, with sustained winds of up to 125 mph (205 kph). It was 45 miles (70 km) east-southeast of Grand Turk Island as of 2 a.m. EDT (0600 GMT), the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

It was forecast to bring storm surges of up to 12 feet (3.7 m) to the southeastern Bahamas as well as the Turks and Caicos, it said.

Maria was expected to bring as much as 40 inches (102 cm) of rain to Puerto Rico and an island-wide flash flood watch was in effect. Between eight and 16 inches (20 to 40 cm) of rain was expected on Turks and Caicos, which could cause flash floods and mudslides, the NHC said.

Maria looked unlikely to hit the continental United States but its storm swells will reach the U.S. southeastern coast from Friday, the NHC said.

Utility crews from the U.S. mainland were headed to Puerto Rico to help restore the power grid and the U.S. military sent ground forces and aircraft to assist with search and rescue.

More than 95 percent of wireless cell sites were not working on Thursday afternoon on the island, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission said. In the U.S. Virgin Islands, more than three-quarters of cell sites are out of service.

In Dominica, Maria damaged about 95 percent of roofs, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. It struck as a Category 5 storm on Monday, ripping foliage off plants and obliterating the island's vital agricultural sector.

The storm caused flooding in the Dominican Republic when it passed nearby from Wednesday night.

Maria passed close by the U.S. Virgin Island of St. Croix, home to about 55,000 people, early on Wednesday as a Category 5 storm, knocking out electricity and most mobile phone service.

"The worst is behind us," Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp told reporters on Thursday. The government has imposed a 24-hour curfew until further notice.

About 600 people throughout the U.S. Virgin Islands are in emergency shelters and many parts are without power, Mapp said.

"It's going to be a long road to recovery," Mapp said. Maria hit about two weeks after Hurricane Irma pounded two other U.S. Virgin Islands: St. Thomas and St. John.

Irma, one of the most powerful Atlantic storms on record, killed at least 84 people in the Caribbean and the United States. It followed Harvey, which killed more than 80 people when it hit Texas in late August and caused flooding in Houston.

More than two months remain in the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30. </s> A big fire erupted at an electricity plant that powers most of Puerto Rico on Wednesday, and a blackout swept across the U.S. territory of 3.5 million people.

The Electric Power Authority said two transmission lines of 230,000 volts each failed for reasons still being investigated. Spokeswoman Yohari Molina said in a phone interview that it was unclear when power would be restored.

The island's fire department said it extinguished a blaze at the power plant in southern Puerto Rico that serves a majority of customers on the island. Heavy storms were affecting the area where the plant is.

Authorities said the outage caused 15 fires across Puerto Rico as a result of malfunctioning generators, including at the upscale Vanderbilt hotel in the popular tourist area of Condado and at the mayor's office in the northern coastal town of Catano. All those fires were put out and no one was injured, officials said.

The blackout snarled road traffic across the island and the government had to cancel train service in the capital of San Juan and close a busy traffic tunnel in the island's southern region. Businesses, universities and government offices closed early, creating even more chaos on roads.

"I call on people to cooperate and respect drivers and government officials ... to avoid any regrettable incidents," Transportation Secretary Miguel Torres said.

The outage angered many Puerto Ricans who are struggling with power bills that are on average twice that of the U.S. mainland. People took to social media to demand where exactly their money is going.

The power company has faced numerous allegations of corruption and is struggling with a $9-billion debt that it hopes to restructure. Company officials have said they are seeking more revenue to update what they say is outdated equipment.

Puerto Rico is mired in a decade-long economic slump and the territory's government is working to restructure nearly $70 billion in public debt that the governor has said is unpayable.

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Anger grows in Tulsa as police release video of fatal shooting of unarmed black man </s> Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands both suffered substantial damage from Hurricane Maria, although Puerto Rico took the bigger hit, and it is there that Amateur Radio has begun to fill a huge telecommunications gap. According to the FCC, service is out for 96% of the cellular telephone sites in Puerto Rico — and it’s out completely for sites in 78 Puerto Rico counties. In the US Virgin Islands, the overall percentage is 66%.

“The situation in Puerto Rico is very devastating across all the island,” Puerto Rico SM Oscar Resto, KP4RF, said over the weekend. “Communications via land phone or mobiles are almost null.” Repeaters are down, he said, and hams have been using the 2-meter simplex frequency of 146.52 MHz, although he hoped to have a few local ham radio repeaters “working partially with damaged antennas.” With police repeaters also down, law enforcement has been using 2 meters as well.

American Red Cross Headquarters suffered the loss of its emergency generator due to flooding. A temporary ARC headquarters has Internet and cell service, he said.

Over the weekend, the American Red Cross (ARC) asked the ARRL for assistance in recruiting 50 radio amateurs who can help record, enter, and submit disaster-survivor information into the ARC Safe and Well system. That request was fulfilled today. In the nearly 75-year relationship between ARRL and ARC, this is the first time such a request for assistance on this scale has been made.

Resto said radio amateurs have also been assisting Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority (Autoridad de Energía Eléctrica) using 146.52 MHz to dispatch line crews and coordinate fuel deliveries for the authority’s offices at the Monacillo Control Center and at several power plants. “The power system is fully shut down for all the island,” he said. Drinking water and proper sanitation facilities are also in very short supply. Resto said Puerto Rico needs “everything…solar panels, repeaters, and most important, transmission lines and antennas. Some base or mobile VHF/UHF radios, a 1 to 2 kW power generator.” Fuel for generators as well as vehicles is running low on Puerto Rico, however.

Radio amateurs in Puerto Rico have been operating a brisk and busy ad hoc health-and-welfare traffic nets on 7.175 and 14.270 MHz, as has the Salvation Army Team Emergency Network (SATERN) on 14.265 MHz. Nets are handling only outgoing traffic. Resto said checking on individuals’ welfare typically requires attempting to visit them in person, since telecommunications are down nearly everywhere.

Gerry Hull, W1VE, reports that Herb Perez, KK4DCX, in San German, had been operating 6 to 8 hours a day, working dozens of operators, taking numbers and calling families. “I’ve done at least 200 messages with him,” said Hull, who has also been active on the SATERN net. Another station in Puerto Rico was operating from solar power.



“Calls to family are very emotional,” he told ARRL. “I am getting all kinds of calls day and night for people desperate to hear about family in Puerto Rico, but hams cannot provide inbound traffic.” He directs them to the Red Cross website to submit inquiries. “Lots of contesters are helping with their big stations,” he said.

US Virgin Islands Section Manager Fred Kleber, K9VV, said the USVI are in much better shape than Puerto Rico. “They really got slammed hard,” he said. Kleber said he still has antennas that were not destroyed by the storm and that he can hit Puerto Rico on 2 meters from his location. He also has announced plans to deploy some 20 mesh wireless network nodes in the US Virgin Islands.

“We have used every trick in our comms bag of tricks to make stuff work,” Kleber said.

Kleber said pictures in the news and social media don’t do justice to the wholesale devastation, which Caribbean radio amateurs also must deal with at their homes and in their communities. He told ARRL late last week that trees, power poles, transformers, and telephone lines are down all over, debris is blocking roadways, and it takes a long time to get anywhere. He and others have been staffing the emergency communications center 24/7. </s> The International Space Station’s external cameras captured another dramatic view of Hurricane Irma as it made landfall in the Caribbean Sept. 6, 2017. NASA

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Irma lashed Puerto Rico with heavy rain and powerful winds Wednesday, leaving more than 600,000 people without power as authorities struggled to get aid to small Caribbean islands already devastated by the historic storm.

Florida rushed to prepare for a possible direct hit on the Miami area by the Category 5 storm with potentially catastrophic 185 mph winds.

Nearly every building on the island of Barbuda was damaged when the eye of the storm passed almost directly overhead early Wednesday and about 60 percent of the island's roughly 1,400 people were left homeless, Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Gaston Browne told The Associated Press.

"Either they were totally demolished or they would have lost their roof," Browne said after returning to Antigua from a plane trip to the neighboring island. "It is just really a horrendous situation."

He said roads and telecommunications systems were destroyed and recovery will take months, if not years. A 2-year-old child was killed as a family tried to escape a damaged home during the storm, Browne told the AP.

Serious damage was also reported on St. Martin, an island split between French and Dutch control. France sent emergency food and water rations there and to the French island of St. Bart's, where Irma ripped off roofs and knocked out all electricity. Dutch marines who flew to St. Martin and two other Dutch islands hammered by Irma reported extensive damage but no deaths or injuries.

By early Wednesday evening, the center of the storm was 40 miles northwest of St. Thomas in the U.S. Virgin Islands and 55 miles northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and heading west-northwest at 16 mph (26 kph).

More than 600,000 Puerto Ricans were without power and nearly 50,000 without water, the U.S. territory's emergency management agency said. Fourteen hospitals were using generators after losing power, and trees and light poles were strewn across roads.

The tiny island of Culebra reported sustained winds of 88 mph and wind gusts of 110 mph.

The U.S. National Weather Service said Puerto Rico had not seen a hurricane of Irma's magnitude since Hurricane San Felipe in 1928, which killed a total of 2,748 people in Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico and Florida.

Puerto Rico's public power company has cut back on staff and maintenance amid a decade-long economic crisis and the agency's director warned that some areas could be without power from four to six months because the infrastructure has already deteriorated so badly.

President Donald Trump this week approved an emergency declaration for the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. That means the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other agencies can remove debris and give other services that will largely be paid for by the U.S. government.

EPA officials said their biggest concerns were oil spills and power disruptions to water supply systems.

"No matter what precautions we take, the coastal flooding will impact oil tanks," said Catherine McCabe, a regional administrator.

Another concern was the 20 Superfund sites in Puerto Rico and the three in the U.S. Virgin islands, given that most were near the coast, she said. She said EPA officials in New Jersey were on standby to fly down after the hurricane passed through.

State maintenance worker Juan Tosado said he was without power for three months after Hurricane Hugo killed dozens of people in Puerto Rico in 1989.

"I expect the same from this storm," he said. "It's going to be bad."

Tourist Pauline Jackson, a 59-year-old registered nurse from Tampa, Florida, puffed on her last cigarette as a San Juan hotel prepared to shutter its doors ahead of the storm.

"I'm in a hurricane here, and when I get home, I'll be in the same hurricane. It's crazy," she said.

She tried to leave ahead of the storm but all flights were sold out, and she worried about her home in Tampa.

"When you're from Florida, you understand a Category 5 hurricane," said Jackson, who was scheduled to fly out Friday.

The U.S. National Hurricane Center said Irma's winds would fluctuate, but the storm would likely remain at Category 4 or 5 for the next day or two as it roared past the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, the Turks & Caicos and parts of the Bahamas.

By early Sunday, Irma is expected to hit Florida, where Gov. Rick Scott said he planned to activate 7,000 National Guard soldiers by Friday and warned that Irma is "bigger, faster and stronger" than Hurricane Andrew.

Andrew pummeled south Florida 25 years ago and wiped out entire neighborhoods with ferocious winds.

Trump also declared an emergency in Florida, and authorities in the Bahamas said they were evacuating six southern islands.

Experts worried that Irma could rake the entire Florida east coast from Miami to Jacksonville and then head into Savannah, Georgia, and the Carolinas, striking highly populated and developed areas.

"This could easily be the most costly storm in U.S. history, which is saying a lot considering what just happened two weeks ago," said Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami.

The mayor of Miami-Dade County said people should be prepared to evacuate Miami Beach and most coastal areas as soon as Wednesday evening. He activated the emergency operation center and urged residents to have three days' worth of food and water.

The State Department authorized voluntary evacuation of U.S. diplomats and their families from the Dominican Republic, Haiti and Cuba, where the storm was expected to arrive by Friday.

Warm water is fuel for hurricanes, and Irma was moving over water that was 1.8 degrees (1 degree Celsius) warmer than normal. Four other storms have had winds as strong in the overall Atlantic region, but they were in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, which usually have warmer waters. Hurricane Allen hit 190 mph in 1980, while 2005's Wilma, 1988's Gilbert and a 1935 great Florida Keys storm all had 185 mph winds.

Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis said his government was evacuating six islands because authorities would not be able to help anyone caught in the "potentially catastrophic" wind, flooding and storm surge. People there would be flown to Nassau in what he called the largest storm evacuation in the country's history.

The northern parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti could see 10 inches (25 centimeters) of rain, with as much as 20 inches (50 centimeters) in the southeast Bahamas and Turks and Caicos.

The website cruisecritic.com said 28 cruises had been canceled, shortened or had their itineraries changed as a result of the hurricane.

Also Wednesday, Tropical Storm Katia formed in the Gulf of Mexico off Mexico's coast and rapidly became a hurricane. It had sustained winds of 75 mph (120 kph) and Mexico's government issued a hurricane watch for the coast of Veracruz state from Tuxpan to Laguna Verde. Katia was about 185 miles (300 kilometers) north-northeast of the city of Veracruz and was expected to drift toward the coast on Thursday, the hurricane center said.

Another tropical storm farther east in the Atlantic became a hurricane Wednesday evening. Hurricane Jose posed no immediate threat to land but meteorologists warned the storm's path could change. Jose had winds of 75 mph (120 kph) and was quickly strengthening.

 ___

 Associated Press writer Danica Coto reported this story in San Juan and AP writer Anika Kentish reported from St. John's, Antigua. AP writers Seth Borenstein in Washington, Michael Weissenstein in Havana and Ben Fox in Miami contributed to this report. </s> SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — A week after Hurricane Maria cut across Puerto Rico like a scythe, Noel Cuevas was working at his family’s damaged but still-standing gas station.

Cuevas had been up since well before the crack of dawn, rationing gas and helping armed police maintain order at the station. Now, night had fallen, and because there was no central electric power, almost all of the lights were out. Local residents were getting restless. Panic was in the air

“Can you imagine? Someone waits 10 or 12 hours in line for gas, to fuel their generator, and then they get to the front of the line and they’re told there is no more gas?” Cuevas recalled. “People were afraid of dying in hospitals because the machines were not operating, because there was no power. People came to me, crying, begging. It was terrible. It was the worst thing that ever happened in our history.”

Cuevas grew up in Camuy, a charming, northwestern coastal city of about 35,000 people. It’s a tourist destination, known as “La Ciudad Romántica” (romantic city). The hurricane didn’t hit Camuy as hard as some areas, but Camuy still felt its wrath.

Cuevas, 26, an outfield prospect in the Rockies organization, mourns for his homeland. He only has an outside shot of making the club’s opening-day roster, but he came to spring training eager to tell his story, because he wants his people’s voice heard.

“I can tell you about all that I saw, and all that I heard, but it won’t do justice to what the people of Puerto Rico went through, and are still going through,” an emotional Cuevas said from inside the Rockies clubhouse at Salt River Fields. “It should never have come to this. When the hurricane came through, it showed just how bad our infrastructure was. It should have been taking care of long before the hurricane hit. It has to be taken care of now.”

Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm packing 155-mph winds, ripped through the heart of the Caribbean island Sept. 20. It destroyed thousands of homes and left much of the island without electricity or clean water for months.

The exact death toll remains in question. On Thursday, the government of Puerto Rico enlisted George Washington University to review the deaths that followed the hurricane. The official death toll stands at 64, but reports from various news organizations suggest the actual number may be significantly higher, perhaps more than 1,000.

Five months after the storm crippled the island, winds of despair still touch many of its 3.4 million citizens. Last week, Puerto Rico’s Department of health reported that the number of people who have reportedly tried to kill themselves since Hurricane Maria hit had more than tripled. From November through January, a crisis hotline run received 3,050 calls from people who said they had attempted suicide.

As of last week, about 99 percent of the customers in Puerto Rico had running water, but more 400,000 residents still didn’t have electricity, according to Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. At the end of January, official aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was “officially shut off” because of the progress made restoring power and basic services to the island. That decision brought the ire of many, including Florida Senator Marco Rubio.

“There are still a lot of people that wonder why are we giving foreign aid to Puerto Rico,” Rubio said on the floor of the senate. “You have to remind them, Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory and its residents are U.S. citizens.”

The federal government finally heeded the wake-up call. Earlier this month, when a $400 billion funding bill was passed to keep the government running, Puerto Rico, along with the United States Virgin Islands, were granted major funding, including $4.8 billion to replenish Medicaid funds, $2 billion to restore the devastated power grid and $9 billion for housing and urban development projects.

But, according to the New York Times, the funding fell “tens of billions of dollars short of what Puerto Rico says it needs to come back from the devastating storm.” Last fall, Puerto Rico estimated it would need $94.4 billion to rebuild the island and make its infrastructure more resilient to future natural disasters.

Cuevas, and his younger brothers, Christian and Ricardo, grew up “comfortable” in an upper-middle class section of Camuy. His father, Noel Sr., owns a number of gas stations. All but one of them was destroyed by the hurricane.

“It was life changing,” Cuevas recalled. “What I saw, the morning after, was like something I would only see in a horror movie. There was not a tree left standing up. There was not a light pole left standing up. It was like a giant lawn mower just ripped out all of the trees.

“You’d drive by houses and the only thing left standing were toilets — sitting there all by themselves. It was tough seeing all the people I know so well lose everything. A lot of them left for the mainland and they aren’t coming back.”

Cuevas, a powerfully built, 6-foot-2, 210-pound right-hander, was drafted by the Dodgers in 2010 and sent to the Rockies following the 2014 season as the player to be named in a trade for pitcher Juan Nicasio. Cuevas hit .312 with 15 home runs and 79 RBIs at Triple-A Albuquerque last year. He planned to play winter baseball in Puerto Rico, tuning up for spring training, but the hurricane destroyed the baseball fields.

So, after his family’s life normalized, to a certain extent, he went to Mexico. managing to play in 47 games. But even now, as the Rockies open their Cactus League season, Cuevas phones home nearly every day to check in with his mom, Enid.

“She lost her power again the other day … they still get a lot of blackouts back home, but she’s doing better,” Cuevas said.

The outfielder calls Hurricane Maria “life changing.” He and his brothers hauled water up from the nearby ocean to fill toilets. When water service was finally restored, it was contaminated, so Cuevas took showers standing outside his house as rainwater poured out of a broken gutter.

“Living through the hurricane changed my entire perspective,” Cuevas said. “I’d traveled through the Dominican Republic before when I was with the Dodgers, and I saw poverty. But I couldn’t put myself in their shoes, because I had never really been in that situation.

“But then, for the first time in my life, I was asking, ‘Am I going to have to go to bed without eating?’ That changes you.”

During the World Series, Cuevas watched as big-league stars such as the Dodgers’ Kiké Hernandez and the Astros’ Carlos Beltran and Carlos Correa raised awareness for Hurricane Maria. That heartened Cuevas.

“There are a lot of baseball players, like Carlos Beltran, who helped,” Cuevas said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that haven’t been in the big leagues that long, and they’re helping people build a new house. I think that, yes, it’s nice, but I think it’s helps got to come from somewhere else.”

If Cuevas is still angry about what Puerto Rico has endured, he doesn’t show it. Rather, he seeks awareness.

“My home is a beautiful place, and more than that, it’s an American place,” Cuevas said. “And we are U.S. citizens, and I think a lot of people forget that. I don’t want them to ever forget, I want them to remember that we still need help.”

If you are interested in helping the residents of Puerto Rico, here are some organizations to consider giving money to:
• United for Puerto Rico (direct aid and support for Puerto Rico spearheaded by the First Lady of Puerto Rico)
• Hispanic Federation (text Unidos and an amount to 4-144 or visit the website)
• UNICEF (emergency relief and help for children affected)
• Habitat for Humanity (housing and shelter needs) </s> SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — They eye of Hurricane Maria was nearing the Turks and Caicos early Friday as Puerto Rico sought to recover from the storm’s devastation.

Two days after Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, flooding towns, crushing homes and killing at least two people, millions on the island faced the dispiriting prospect of weeks and perhaps months without electricity. The storm knocked out the entire grid across the U.S. territory of 3.4 million, leaving many without power.

The loss of power left residents hunting for gas canisters for cooking, collecting rainwater or steeling themselves mentally for the hardships to come in the tropical heat. Some contemplated leaving the island.

“You cannot live here without power,” said Hector Llanos, a 78-year-old retired New York police officer who planned to leave Saturday for the U.S. mainland to live there temporarily.

Like many Puerto Ricans, Llanos does not have a generator or gas stove. “The only thing I have is a flashlight,” he said, shaking his head. “This is never going to return to normal.”

Maria’s death toll across the Caribbean, meanwhile, climbed to at least 19, nearly all of them on the hard-hit island of Dominica. In Puerto Rico, the government said at least two were killed but media on the island were reporting additional deaths and the actual toll appeared unlikely to be known for days.

As of Friday morning, Maria was moving toward the Turks and Caicos with winds of 125 mph (205 kph). The storm was expected to move near or just east of the Turks and Caicos and the southeastern Bahamas on Friday. From there, it is expected to veer into the open Atlantic, no threat to the U.S. mainland.

In Puerto Rico, the grid was in sorry shape long before Maria — and Hurricane Irma two weeks ago — struck.

The territory’s $73 billion debt crisis has left agencies like the state power company broke. It abandoned most basic maintenance in recent years, leaving the island subject to regular blackouts.

“We knew this was going to happen given the vulnerable infrastructure,” Gov. Ricardo Rossello said.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency said it would open an air bridge from the mainland on Friday, with three to four military planes flying to the island every day carrying water, food, generators and temporary shelters.

“There’s a humanitarian emergency here in Puerto Rico,” Rossello said. “This is an event without precedent.”

He said his administration was trying to open ports soon to receive shipments of food, water, generators, cots and other supplies.

The government has hired 56 small contractors to clear trees and put up new power lines and poles and will be sending tanker trucks to supply neighborhoods as they run out of water. The entire island has been declared a federal disaster zone.

Mike Hyland, senior vice president of engineering services for the American Public Power Association, a utility industry group that is sending repair crews into the Caribbean, refused to speculate on how long it would take to restore power in Puerto Rico.

“Let’s see what the facts tell us by the end of the weekend,” he said. But he acknowledged: “This is going to be a tall lift.”

Maribel Montilla already had two large barrels filled with water but worried about how long it would last for her, her daughter, her son-in-law and six grandchildren.

“You know what I think? We’re going to be without power for six months now,” she said.

Cellphone and internet service collapsed in much of Puerto Rico. The only radio station that remained on the air during the hurricane — WAPA 680 AM — was relaying messages to help connect friends and families.

Other concerns were more prosaic. Across the street, someone yelled at a neighbor, “Listen, do you have Netflix?!”

Jaime Rullan, a sports commentator, has a gas stove at home but tried not to think about the lack of air conditioning on an island where the heat index has surpassed 100 degrees (37 Celsius) in recent days.

“We’re used to the lights going out because of storms here in Puerto Rico, but this time, we’re worried,” he said. “We should prepare ourselves mentally to be at least a month without power.”

Deysi Rodriguez, a 46-year-old caretaker for elderly people, does not have a gas stove. And unlike others who have been lining up at the few fast-food restaurants that have reopened, Rodriguez is a diabetic and has to be more careful about what she eats.

Rodriguez said she might temporarily move to New Jersey if the situation gets worse.

Pedro Cartagena, a 57-year-old dock supervisor, said he planned to shower, eat and sleep at his company’s office. He plans to buy food at the few restaurants that are open and operating on generators.

“That’s going to drain my bank account,” he said, “but if I want to eat, that’s my only option.”

In an upscale neighborhood in San Juan, 69-year-old retiree Annie Mattei’s condominium has a generator. But she said maintenance will shut it off between 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. to save fuel.

“This has been devastating,” she said as her eyes welled with tears.

In the Dominican Republican, Maria knocked down trees and power lines. But Joel Santos, president of the country’s hotel association, said the hurricane did not damage the tourism infrastructure, even though it passed close to Punta Cana, the major resort area on the eastern tip of the island.

In Dominica, where Maria laid waste to hundreds of homes and was blamed for at least 15 deaths, Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit wept as he spoke to a reporter on the nearby island of Antigua.

“It is a miracle there were not hundreds of deaths,” he said. He added: “Dominica is going to need all the help the world has to offer.” </s> The incident at the Swar dam is the fourth major dam failure in recent months.

Monsoon rains have caused a dam in Myanmar to overflow, inundating the nearby township of Swar and surrounding villages in Bago region.At least 50,000 people are thought to have evacuated their homes after the Swar irrigation dam was breached during the early hours of 29 August, 2018, according to Reuters.Images on social media show teams from fire services and military helping to evacuate people from flooded areas. Myanmar Fire Service said they were using boats to carry out search and rescue operations. Some unconfirmed reports suggested that there have been some fatalities.Parts of Laos were badly affected in July this year when heavy rainfall caused the collapse of the Xepian-Xe Nam Noy hydropower dam under construction in Sanamxay District of Attapeu province, that left at least 35 dead and many more still missing.In Colombia, the government in Antioquia department, Colombia, declared a Public Calamity after the Hidroituango Dam on the Cauca river threatened to collapse. On 12 May, a sudden release of water from the dam flooded municipalities of Puerto Valdivia and Taraza down stream, forcing around 600 people to evacuate their homes. By 23 May, further evacuations had been carried out in Puerto Valdivia and the municipalities of Puerto Antioquia, Cáceres and Tarazá, with the total number disaplced at around 25,000.In Kenya, the Patel Dam in Solai, Subukia Sub-County, Nakuru County , broke its banks on 09 May, 2018, killing at least 38 people. </s> Compounding Puerto Rico's devastation in the wake of Hurricane Maria is the fact that so much is still unknown. Because most of the island's cellphone sites are out of service and the power grid is down, it has been difficult or impossible to connect with the people who live there — whether from the mainland or from another part of the island.

Atlanta resident Silkia Babilonia, who lives in Atlanta, says that since the storm, she hasn't been able to reach friends and family on the island's west side.

"I tried to call every single number have for them, cellphone and landlines, but nothing," Babilonia, who was born and raised in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, before moving to the mainland five years ago, told NPR. "We're trying to stay calm, pray and hope everything is alright."

Calling family in the San Juan area has been easier, Babilonia said. "My husband can talk to his family nearly every day, and they're doing OK. They're safe."

Puerto Rican officials say at least six people are confirmed dead on the island in connection with the storm, The Associated Press reports. The death toll across the Caribbean was 27 as of Friday afternoon, with at least 15 deaths on Dominica.

The Federal Communications Commission reported Thursday that 95.2 percent of all cellular telephone sites in Puerto Rico were out of service. (In the U.S. Virgin Islands, meanwhile, 76.6 percent of cell sites are down.)

It's not just the cellular networks that aren't working: The FCC says it has received reports that "large percentages of consumers are without either cable services or wireline services."

Some people were able to connect using Internet-based tools. Julio Cerón, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., said he reached family members in the northeastern region of Canovanas by calling via Messenger, a service from Facebook, "which we couldn't have done a couple of years ago," he told NPR.

But if you can't get on the Internet, services like Messenger are no help.

Dyn Research posted charts of Internet traffic in Puerto Rico, which dropped precipitously on Wednesday as power and Internet connections there failed.

Vanessa Calderón-Rosado, who works in Boston, told NPR member station WBUR on Thursday that it took her days and dozens of tries to reach her 87-year-old father on a landline.

"He's doing good. So that's great. When we were able to connect today, our calls dropped and then we weren't able to reconnect," she said. "But at least we were able to talk long enough to know that he's fine and to have a good conversation. So it is very erratic right now. It's very choppy. There's no consistent way of communicating."

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she, too, was struggling to reach family members in the west coast area of Mayaguez.

"The island is suffering a great tragedy right now," she said, according to CNN. "Myself personally and the rest of my family, we are exceedingly concerned. We ask for your prayers."

On a Hurricane Maria page on its USA.gov website, the federal government offered suggestions to people trying to connect with loved ones in Puerto Rico, including an email address (maria1@prfaa.pr.gov) and phone number (202-800-3133) to call the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration. Though the site cautioned: "They are experiencing high email volume, please do not send more than one email unless the situation of your loved one has changed."

Its other suggestions include a registry run by the Red Cross and one rather low-tech option: calling into Puerto Rican radio station WIPR.

A small handful of radio stations managed to keep broadcasting through the storm and have worked to relay messages about loved ones who couldn't be reached by phone or Internet.

Silkia Babilonia says she knows what it's like to be out of touch: She was on the island in 1998 during Hurricane Georges and its aftermath, when phone service was lost for months.

"From my side now," she says of trying to reach people, "you feel a bit anxious about it."

"But on the other side, being the person living through the situation, you want to tell everybody else that you're doing good, but you're not able to. It just doesn't feel right."



Do you have a Maria story? Tell us here. </s> Updated at 9:12 a.m. ET

After devastating parts of the Caribbean, Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico at 6:15 a.m. ET Wednesday as a Category 4 hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center. It had previously been a Category 5 hurricane, but even downgraded, it packed powerful sustained winds of 150 mph and is the strongest hurricane to have hit the island in decades.

Maria's eye closed in on the island near the eastern municipality of Yabucoa. The NHC says the eye will continue to move across the U.S. territory Wednesday morning and will move off the northern coast by afternoon.

"The center will then pass just north of the northeast coast of the Dominican Republic tonight and Thursday," according to the hurricane center.

"Very high winds are just tearing trees apart," Miguel Santiago with member station WRTU in San Juan reported Wednesday morning. "Most of the island is without power ... or water."

Puerto Rico had long been spared from a direct hit by a hurricane and most recently avoided Irma, which went on to strike Florida.

In the days before Maria hit the island, Puerto Ricans were urged to heed hurricane warnings and evacuation orders.

"We expect severe devastation," Gov. Ricardo Rosselló told NPR. "We have about 500 shelters. People have been trickling into those shelters. But really, we have some weak infrastructure in terms of some of the homes that we have in Puerto Rico."

By late Tuesday, more than 4,000 people on the island had gone to shelters to wait out Maria, the governor tweeted.

"One of the shelters in San Juan had to relocate refugees to the hallways because of the roof, it was shaking due to the winds," Santiago said.

President Donald Trump on Tuesday offered his support via Twitter: "Puerto Rico being hit hard by new monster Hurricane. Be careful, our hearts are with you- will be there to help!"

Elsewhere in the Caribbean, a falling tree killed one person on the island of Guadeloupe Tuesday, The Associated Press reports. Two people aboard a boat were reported missing off La Desirade island, just east of Guadeloupe, officials told the news agency.

The storm also blew over the tiny eastern Caribbean island of Dominica late Monday. NPR's Two-Way reports:
Casualty reports indicate at least 15 people have been killed on Dominica and two on Guadeloupe. The casualty report for Puerto Rico is now two deaths, including a man from a capsized boat near Vieques, Puerto Rico. Power remains out for an estimated 3.4 million Puerto Ricans as the energy grid is all but destroyed. Guajataca Dam in Puerto Rico will experience an "imminent dam break" according to the National Weather Service which will threaten 70,000 residents. In addition, more than 95 percent of the island’s wireless cell sites are out of service.