http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/21/552555169/hurricane-maria-leaves-puerto-rico-without-power-hits-dominican-republic..."We are without power, the whole island is without power," Jenniffer González-Colón, Puerto Rico's resident commissioner — its representative in Congress — told Morning Edition on Thursday. González-Colón spoke from Carolina, near San Juan.
In many places, Maria ruined repairs that had only just been completed after the island was hit with a glancing blow from the massively powerful Hurricane Irma. Puerto Rico is home to 3.4 million people; Maria is the strongest storm to hit there in decades.
NPR's Greg Allen reported on the storm's effects for our Newscast unit:
"Maria dropped a record 35 inches of rain in some places. Rivers across the island are out of their banks. Authorities opened the floodgates on reservoirs making flooding worse in some downstream communities. In Levittown, west of San Juan, flooding forced residents to their rooftops where they awaited rescue....
