Puerto Rico Dam Fails As Hurricane Maria Continues To Plague Residents 
 
 Updated 10:10 p.m. ET Fri 
 
 Though the brunt of Hurricane Maria has left Puerto Rico, the island's water worries continue. On Friday afternoon, the National Weather Service reported that the Guajataca Dam in the northwest is "failing," causing flash flooding. Buses were trying to evacuate people from the area "as quickly as they can," the service said. 
 
 Officials say between 50,000 and 70,000 residents may have to be evacuated, according to the Associated Press, which also notes that authorities sent "frantic warnings on Twitter that went unseen by many in the blacked-out coastal area." 
 
 The dam failure is causing flooding downstream on the Guajataca River. 
 
 A flash flood watch is also in effect for much of the island through Friday evening with continued rainfall. 
 
 At least seven rivers in Puerto Rico are still running above "flood stage" (the point at which overflow begins to cause damage from flooding): 
 
 As Hurricane Maria passed, the entire main island saw persistent and intense rain that accumulated quickly. Caguas, about an hour inland from San Juan, saw 37.9 inches of rainfall, and most of the island got around 20 inches. 
 
 Los Angeles Times reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske described the rain in San Juan as "white sheets of rain almost like a snowstorm. It's that intense and can get sort of whiteout effects." 
 
 Occasionally heavy rain is expected to continue until Tuesday, according to the NWS. 
 
 Over the past 100-plus years, Puerto Rico has averaged 10 inches of rain for all of September. ||||| Officials are rushing to evacuate tens of thousands of people from their homes in western Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria inflicted structural damage on a dam and unleashed “extremely dangerous” flash floods. 
 
 Some 70,000 residents in the municipalities of Isabela and Quebradillas were being evacuated by bus after a crack appeared in the nearly 90-year old Guajataca dam. 
 
 “It’s a structural failure. I don’t have any more details,” Governor Ricardo Rossello said from the capital, San Juan. “We’re trying to evacuate as many people as possible.” 
 
 “This is an EXTREMELY DANGEROUS SITUATION. Buses are currently evacuating people from the area as quickly as they can,” the US National Weather Service tweeted on Friday . 
 
 NWS San Juan (@NWSSanJuan) 215PM FLASH FLOOD EMERGENCY for A Dam Failure in Isabela Municipality y Quebradillas Municipality in Puerto Rico... #prwx pic.twitter.com/L3utOjxspR 
 
 In a later message, the NWS tweeted: “All Areas surrounding the Guajataca River should evacuate NOW. Their lives are in DANGER! Please SHARE!” 
 
 
 
 NWS San Juan (@NWSSanJuan) Todas las areas alrededor del Rio Guajataca deben desalojar AHORA. Sus vidas corren PELIGRO. Favor de COMPARTIR. #prwx 
 
 More than 15in (nearly 40cm) of rain has fallen on the mountains surrounding the Guajataca dam, swelling the reservoir behind the nearly 90-year-old dam, which holds back a manmade lake covering about two square miles (five square kilometres). 
 
 An engineer inspecting the dam reported a “contained breach” that officials quickly realized was a crack and could be the first sign of total failure of the dam, said Anthony Reynes, a meteorologist with the US National Weather Service. 
 
 “There’s no clue as to how long or how this can evolve. That is why the authorities are moving so fast, because they also have the challenges of all the debris. It is a really, really dire situation,” Reynes said. 
 
 “They are trying to mobilize all the resources they can, but it’s not easy. We really don’t know how long it would take for this failure to become a full break of the dam.” 
 
 The scale of the damage inflicted by Hurricane Maria is only just beginning to emerge, partly because communications to outlying areas of the island were severely hampered by the storm. 
 
 A government spokesman, Carlos Bermudez, said officials had no communication with 40 of the 78 municipalities on the island more than two days after the category 5 storm crossed the island, toppling power lines and cell phone towers and sending floodwaters cascading through city streets. 
 
 Maj Gen Derek P Rydholm, deputy to the chief of the air force reserve, said at the Pentagon that it was impossible to say when communication and power would be restored. He said mobile communications systems were being flown in but acknowledged “it’s going to take a while” before people in Puerto Rico will be able to communicate with their families outside the island. 
 
 Until Friday, he said, “there was no real understanding at all of the gravity of the situation”. 
 
 Maria was the second major hurricane to hit the Caribbean this month and the strongest storm to hit the US territory in nearly 90 years. It completely knocked out the island’s power, and several rivers hit record flood levels. 
 
 
 
 Officials on the island said on Friday that six people had been confirmed killed by the storm: three died in landslides in Utuadno, in the island’s mountainous center; two drowned in flooding in Toa Baja, west of San Juan; and one died in Bayamón, also near San Juan, after being struck by a panel. 
 
 Earlier news media reports had the death toll on the island as high as 15. 
 
 “At the moment, these are fatalities we know of. We know of other potential fatalities through unofficial channels that we haven’t been able to confirm,” said Héctor Pesquera, the government’s secretary of public safety. 
 

– Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated in Puerto Rico after reports of a dam failing Friday, CBS News reports. According to NPR, the National Weather Service announced the Guajataca Dam was failing, causing flash flooding on the Guajataca River. Buses are trying to evacuate the cities of Isabela and Quebradillas—home to about 70,000 people. But details on the damage to the dam and evacuation were sparse as communication is still difficult following Hurricane Maria's battering of the island. “It’s a structural failure. I don’t have any more details,” the Guardian quotes Gov. Ricardo Rossello as saying. “We’re trying to evacuate as many people as possible.” The Guajataca Dam was built decades ago and holds back a man-made lake of about 2 square miles. The National Weather Service is warning of a "life-threatening" situation and advising people to "move to higher ground now." At least seven rivers in Puerto Rico are currently above "flood stage" and much of the island is under a flash-flood warning through Friday. Puerto Rico averages about 10 inches of rain for the entire month of September; some areas of the island have received nearly 40 in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Up to 6 inches of rain is expected through Saturday, and heavy rain is expected on and off until Tuesday.