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Hurricanes Jose, Katia, and Maria


Cartmann99

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1 hour ago, Destiny said:

Sadly, I fear you are right. They've been in dire straits for years, and congress seems to give less than zero fucks bout the brown people across the ocean. 

They don't care about the brown people living with in sight of the Capitol or White House.

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The WaPo just published a good article about Maria's striking Puerto Rico: "Hurricane Maria hammers Puerto Rico with force not seen in 'modern history'"

Spoiler

SAN JUAN — Hurricane Maria roared ashore on Puerto Rico on Wednesday as the strongest storm to strike the island in more than 80 years while panicked residents fled to high ground and huddled in shelters hoping to withstand powerhouse winds that have already left death and devastation across the Caribbean.

"On the forecast track, [Maria] would be the most destructive hurricane in Puerto Rico history," tweeted Eric Blake, a forecaster at the Hurricane Center.

The storm slammed ashore near Yabucoa, Puerto Rico  at 6:15 a.m. as a Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds — the first Category 4 storm to directly strike the island since 1932. By early morning, it was swirling across eastern Puerto Rico.

Michael Brennan, another Hurricane Center forecaster, tweeted late Tuesday that he was "starting to run out of adjectives for" Maria, the second huge hurricane to plow through the Caribbean this month.

"Horrifying," Brennan wrote.

Speaking on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday, Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said conditions were "deteriorating rapidly."

"This is clearly going to be the most devastating storm in the history of our island," he said, adding that it will take another half day for the worst part to hit.

Buildings that meet the island's newer construction codes, established around 2011, should be able to weather the winds, Rosselló said. But wooden homes in flood-prone areas "have no chance," he predicted.

Already, Maria has roared over islands to the east with winds of more than 160 mph and downpours that triggered flooding and landslides. In the French island of Guadeloupe, officials said at least two deaths were blamed on Maria, and at least two people were missing after a ship went down near the tiny French island of Desirade.

Maria's force was clear from its first brush with land. In a breathless series of Facebook posts late Monday, the prime minister of the island nation of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, described furious winds that tore off the roof of his official residence. "My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding," he wrote.

Puerto Rico was spared the full force of the Category 5 monster Irma earlier this month. Yet the storm came close enough to knock out power for about 1 million people on Puerto Rico and weaken its hurricane defenses.

"This is going to be an extremely violent phenomenon," Rosselló told the Associated Press as Maria approached. "We have not experienced an event of this magnitude in our modern history."

Abner Gómez, executive director of Puerto Rico's emergency management agency, told reporters that the island's electric system was beginning to collapse even further. Meanwhile, the island's governor tweeted that by 5 a.m., there were 11,229 people in shelters, and 580 pets.

Before dawn, Maria's maximum sustained winds of 150 mph were down slightly from late Tuesday. But that meant little for Maria's ability to threaten anything in its path.

"Maria is an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane … and it should maintain this intensity until landfall," the Hurricane Center said.

The Hurricane Center warned that the rain — possibly exceeding 25 inches in some places — may "prompt numerous evacuations and rescues" and "enter numerous structures within multiple communities," adding that streets and parking lots may "become rivers of raging water" and warns some structures will become "uninhabitable or washed away."

Along the coast, the Weather Service describes"extensive impacts" from a "life-threatening" storm surge at the coast, reaching 6 to 9 feet above normally dry land. The highest storm surge is likely to occur just north and northeast of where the center makes landfall, which could target southeast Puerto Rico.

Puerto Rico is very vulnerable to hurricanes, but it has been lucky as well. The last hurricane to make landfall was Georges in 1998. Just one Category 5 hurricane has hit Puerto Rico in recorded history, back in 1928.

To the north, the remnants of Hurricane Jose brought pounding surf and 65 mph winds to southern New England. Tropical storm warnings were issued for the coast from Rhode Island to Cape Cod.

Jose was also watched closely for its spillover effect on Maria. It could help in keeping Maria away from the U.S. mainland by drawing it to the northeast. However, if Jose weakens too quickly, Maria could drift closer to the U.S. coast by the middle of next week.

Residents of San Juan, the capital city, appeared to be heeding officials' warnings to get ready, with many preparing since the weekend with a growing sense of unease and resignation.

At a gas station in Barrio Obrero, Manuel Rivera sat huddled in the back of a red Jeep on Tuesday afternoon surrounded by water jugs full of gas.

His friends filled them one by one to ensure they would have enough fuel for the generator at their home. They had electricity for now, but they expected it could be gone by nightfall.

"The power leaves when it wants to," Rivera said. After Irma, his home was without power for about a week.

Grocery and convenience stores had run out of water and ice. Neighborhoods were quiet, save for a few cars on the roads and the sound of people banging boards across their windows.

"Of course I'm nervous, but I feel prepared," said Wilfredo Torres, 36, one of the men installing corrugated steel storm windows outside the post office in the Miramar neighborhood. "There's another storm coming. Maria is coming, and there's nothing you can do. You have to prepare and then wait and see."

A family from Bayamon braved the winds for a brief walk along Avenida Munoz Rivera on the waterfront, bored after being cooped up in their house all day setting up for the hurricane.

"Everyone is calm but tense," said Jorge Velez, out with his wife, Arleen Santini, and their son, Ricardo, 6. "I've seen David, Hugo and Ortensia. But what Maria brings is double the force."

With that, drops began to fall from the sky, and the strengthening winds tilted the palm trees along the waterfront.

Velez and his family rushed to their white SUV, dodging the rain and heading back home for the night.
Fear also rippled across Vieques, a tiny island off Puerto Rico's east coast that is home to about 9,500 residents, many of whom live below the poverty level and are accustomed to dealing with some measure of hardship. Many there evacuated during Irma and opted to stay put for Maria but are now having second thoughts.

"I regret not leaving," said Marie Rivera, 56, whose parents live on Puerto Rico's main island. "I'm not sure when I will be able to see my family again. I'm starting to get a little anxious now."

Irma left many here without power for days. In an unfortunate twist, some residents of Vieques had stocked up on critical supplies in advance of Irma only to donate what they had left to harder-hit areas such as Tortola and St. Thomas. Residents rushed to restock before deliveries to the island stopped and the power flickered off yet again.

President Trump on Sunday declared emergencies in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico in advance of Maria.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has embedded workers across the U.S. territories in the Caribbean, including in parts of the U.S. Virgin Islands affected by Irma, to ensure residents have food and water before the storm.

The U.S. military is expected to assist Puerto Ricans after the storm hits, but is mostly steering clear beforehand to avoid being caught up in it and unable to help, military officials said.

Recovery efforts in Puerto Rico could be hampered by long-standing financial problems that led the territorial government to file for a form of bankruptcy in May.

Each morning, I feel like screaming, "can't we just have one day without a crisis, either natural or man-made?"

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9 hours ago, onekidanddone said:

They don't care about the brown people living with in sight of the Capitol or White House.

Well, they do care about deporting them because all brown people are illegal immigrants from Mexico.

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There's no words for what is happening in our world right now. I hope Jose doesn't weaken too much, so that Maria stays away. However, that does nothing to help those whose lives are already turned upside down by her. :( 

Stay away Nate and Ophelia, don't even think about forming yet. 

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19 hours ago, Flossie said:

I was wondering where the earthquake thread could be found.  Poor Mexico.  It looks bad.  And on the anniversary of the huge quake from 1985...

At least this time someone got hold of Trumps phone and tweeted:  "God bless the people of Mexico City. We are with you and will be there for you."

I hope we as a country can do something to help, but it's going to be difficult because of the hurricanes.

We had an 8.1 a couple of weeks ago.  The north of Mexico City shook, but nothing as widespread as this one (other towns...not so lucky).  Unfortunately, the seismic alarm didn't go off until the shaking started...My reaction, "no sh*t, there's an earthquake."  Buildings are down in the north (ie. Centro Historico, Roma, Condesa) and in the south as well (ie. Xochimilco, Tlalpan). Traffic was jammed afterwards in all of the main streets so a lot of  people ended up leaving their cars on the side or in parking lots to walk. We were without power for over 15ish hours.... There hasn't been a major aftershock yet (knock on wood), but people are def. on edge :S

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Has anyone had any type of update from loved ones/friends/etc. in PR?

My peer from freshman year of college is very terrified and is staying with her family in San Juan. She said everything that she can hear/see is scary and parts of her house are flying apart :(. I haven't seen any update since 9/10am :(.

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Bad news: "Puerto Rico entirely without power as Hurricane Maria hammers island with force not seen in ‘modern history’'

Spoiler

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Hurricane Maria raked across Puerto Rico Wednesday as the most powerful storm to strike the island in more than 80 years, ripping roofs off buildings and filling homes with water, and knocking out power to the entire population.

"Definitely Puerto Rico — when we can get outside — we will find our island destroyed," Puerto Rico's emergency management director, Abner Gomez, said at a midday press conference, adding that 100 percent of the island is without electricity. "The information we have received is not encouraging. It's a system that has destroyed everything it has had in its path."

The storm first slammed the coast near Yabucoa at 6:15 a.m. as a Category 4 hurricane with 155 mph winds — the first Category 4 storm to directly strike the island since 1932. By midmorning, Maria had fully engulfed the 100-mile-long island as winds snapped palm trees, peeled off rooftops, sent debris skidding across beaches and roads. By afternoon, the intense gusts had become less frequent and the lashing rains eased, giving residents their first glimpse of the storm's wake.

In Guayama, on Puerto Rico's southern coast, video clips posted on social media showed a street turned into a river of muddy floodwaters. In the community of Juan Matos, located in Cataño, west of San Juan, 80 percent of the structures were destroyed, the mayor of Cataño told El Nuevo Dia. He said half of the municipal employees lost their homes.

"The area is completely flooded. Water got into the houses. The houses have no roof. Most of them are made of wood and zinc, and electric poles fell on them," the mayor told the publication.

In the capital of San Juan, buildings shook and glass windows shattered from the force of the storm. Residents of some high-rise apartments sought refuge in bathrooms and first-floor lobbies, but even those who sought out safe ground found themselves vulnerable.

Adriana Rosado and her husband decided to stay in the Ciqala Luxury Suites hotel in San Juan's Miramar neighborhood because it had a generator, and would be able to withstand power outages. It seemed like the safest, most comfortable option for their 2-month-old son to have access to electricity, air conditioning and water.

But Rosado, 21, hardly slept Tuesday night, with the howling winds banging against the building's windows. At about 4 a.m. Wednesday, Rosado woke to water flowing into the family's sixth floor hotel room. Shortly after the family left the hotel room, one of its windows was blown out by the storm.

"I just want it to be 10 p.m. so it can all pass, and I can call my family," said Rosado, sitting on the hallway carpet on the first floor with her baby, Jorge Nicolas, sleeping on a pillow and blanket beside her. Rosado's neighborhood in Guaynabo, west of San Juan, experienced major flooding Wednesday. She had not heard from her mother since 4 a.m., unable to get cellphone service.

Speaking on NBC's "Today" show Wednesday morning, Puerto Rico's governor, Ricardo Rosselló, said conditions were "deteriorating rapidly."

Buildings that meet the island's newer construction codes, established around 2011, should be able to weather the winds, Rosselló said. But wooden homes in flood-prone areas "have no chance," he predicted.

"Resist, Puerto Rico," Rosselló tweeted. "God is with us; we are stronger than any hurricane. Together we will lift up."

Already, Maria has roared over islands to the east with winds of more than 160 mph and downpours that triggered flooding and landslides. In the French island of Guadeloupe, officials said at least two deaths were blamed on Maria, and at least two people were missing after a ship went down near the tiny French island of Desirade.

Maria's fury was clear from its first brush with land. In a breathless series of Facebook posts late Monday, the prime minister of the island nation of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, described furious winds that tore off the roof of his official residence. "My roof is gone. I am at the complete mercy of the hurricane. House is flooding," he wrote.

Puerto Rico was spared the full force of the Category 5 monster Irma earlier this month. Yet the storm came close enough to cause widespread power outages and weaken the island's hurricane defenses.

"This is going to be an extremely violent phenomenon," Rosselló told the Associated Press as Maria approached. "We have not experienced an event of this magnitude in our modern history."

Before dawn, Maria's maximum sustained winds of 150 mph were down slightly from late Tuesday. But that meant little for Maria's ability to threaten anything in its path.

"Maria is an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane … and it should maintain this intensity until landfall," the Hurricane Center said.

The Hurricane Center warned that the rain — possibly exceeding 25 inches in some places — may "prompt numerous evacuations and rescues" and "enter numerous structures within multiple communities," adding that streets and parking lots may "become rivers of raging water" and warning some structures will become "uninhabitable or washed away."

Along the coast, the Weather Service described "extensive impacts" from a "life-threatening" storm surge at the coast, reaching 6 to 9 feet above normally dry land.

Puerto Rico is very vulnerable to hurricanes, but it has been lucky as well. The last hurricane to make landfall was Georges in 1998. Just one Category 5 hurricane has hit Puerto Rico in recorded history, back in 1928.

To the north, the remnants of Hurricane Jose brought pounding surf and 65 mph winds to southern New England. Tropical storm warnings were issued for the coast from Rhode Island to Cape Cod.

Jose was also watched closely for its spillover effect on Maria. It could help in keeping Maria away from the U.S. mainland by drawing it to the northeast. However, if Jose weakens too quickly, Maria could drift closer to the U.S. coast by the middle of next week.

Macarena Gil Gandia, a resident of Hato Rey, a business district in San Juan, helped her mother clean out water that had started flooding the kitchen of her second-floor apartment at dawn.

"There are sounds coming from all sides," Gil Gandia said in a text message. "The building is moving! And we're only on the second floor, imagine the rest!"

Parts of Hato Rey were underwater. An electric gate for her building in the neighborhood was blown off, Gil Gandia said.

In the lobby of Ciqala Luxury Home Suites in Miramar, a neighborhood in San Juan, Maria Gil de Lamadrid waited with her husband in the lobby as the rain and wind pounded on the hotel's facade. The door of the hotel's parking garage flopped violently in the wind. The sounds of the storm were so loud that it was hard for hotel guests to hear each other speak.

Gil de Lamadrid spent the night in the hotel after evacuating her nearby 16th floor waterfront apartment, which has been prone to flooding during previous hurricanes. But even in a luxury hotel room, Gil de Lamadrid could not evade flooding; on Wednesday morning, inches of water began to seep into her hotel room through the balcony doors.

She did not yet know how her apartment building and neighbors were faring the storm. "I'm feeling anxious," she said. But her husband shrugged, calmly.

"For me, it's an adventure," the husband said. "Something to talk about later."

Irma left many here without power for days. In an unfortunate twist, some residents of Vieques had stocked up on critical supplies in advance of Irma only to donate what they had left to harder-hit areas such as Tortola and St. Thomas. Residents rushed to restock before deliveries to the island stopped and the power flickered off yet again.

President Trump on Sunday declared emergencies in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico in advance of Maria.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has embedded workers across the U.S. territories in the Caribbean, including in parts of the U.S. Virgin Islands affected by Irma, to ensure residents have food and water before the storm.

The U.S. military is expected to assist Puerto Ricans after the storm hits, but it is mostly steering clear beforehand to avoid being caught up in it and unable to help, military officials said.

Recovery efforts in Puerto Rico could be hampered by long-standing financial problems that led the territorial government to file for a form of bankruptcy in May.

 

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I talked to one of my friends (BFF actually). He managed to get a text out a few hours ago. They had no utilities or internet and super intermittent cell. He was not in the direct path. I haven’t heard from the other ones that are in the direct path. I’m trying (and failing) not to worry.

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NBC News tonight mentioned the possibility of California having a "major" earthquake next. . .could be years, though.

I wonder if Pat Robertson and other evangelicals who were so quick to blame Hurricane Katrina on gays and New Orleans' "sin" have given any thought to maybe this round of disasters is God's punishment for him and others like him using God's name to help put an idiot and fake Christian in the White House?

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22 hours ago, MarblesMom said:

(Over emoting, getting pissy.  Apologies.)

I don't see it as over emoting. You are a caring feeling person with a great deal of empathy.  It is when people stop emoting that the is the problem. 

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"70,000 in Puerto Rico urged to evacuate immediately as dam is in 'imminent' danger of failure"

Spoiler

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — Tens of thousands of people in northwestern Puerto Rico were ordered to evacuate Friday afternoon after floodwaters from Hurricane Maria damaged the Guajataca Dam, which the National Weather Service said is in "imminent" danger of failing.

The dam, built by the Army Corps of Engineers in 1929, suffered damage to its "structural integrity," Gov. Ricardo Rosselló said in a news conference Friday. An estimated 70,000 people in the municipalities of Quebradillas, Isabela and part of San Sebastien could be affected if the dam collapses, he said. A failure would likely send a massive amount of water from an inland lake along the Guajataca River, which flows north through coastal communities toward the ocean.

"We don't know what the details are," Rosselló said, adding, "we are evacuating everywhere."

The situation adds a new urgency in Puerto Rico as officials there survey the wreckage left by Hurricane Maria, the most powerful storm to strike the island in more than 80 years.

Authorities reported at least six deaths, three of which occurred in the municipality of Utuado as a result of mud slides, the U.S. territory's public safety department said in a statement. Two people died in flooding in Toa Baja, and one other person died in Bayamón when a panel struck him in the head. More deaths are likely to be reported in the coming hours and days, officials said.

"We are aware of other reports of fatalities that have transpired by unofficial means, but we cannot confirm them," said the secretary of the department of public safety, Héctor M. Pesquera.

A mansion on a coastal luxury resort, once with enviable ocean views, is now partially floating over open air as rocks and mud crumbled under one corner and fell into the sea. Windmills broke and shattered solar panels shone "like broken mirrors," Pichardo said. One reassuring sign, he said, is that people appeared to have fled many of the flood-damaged areas; occasionally people peeked out of second-floor windows or lingered on balconies, apparently waiting for the waters to recede.

The reports are the latest indication of the damage inflicted by Hurricane Maria, the most powerful storm to strike Puerto Rico in more than 80 years and the third major hurricane to batter parts of the Caribbean and the United States this season. Maria also pummeled parts of the U.S. Virgin Islands, lashed Turks and Caicos on Friday morning and took aim at the Bahamas, where it could dump as much as 20 inches of rain.

Damaging floods continued to plague Puerto Rico in Maria's wake, hampering rescue missions and making it difficult for officials to survey the full extent of the destruction. Authorities have not yet been able to reach or contact some remote communities, in part because of the power outages and damage to communication systems, including cellphone towers and landlines.

Shock has given way to frayed nerves as officials warn residents that it could be months before power is restored. People queued up at gas stations to fuel cars as well as generators, and long lines snaked from grocery stores. Residents unable to reach family members in remote areas took to the roadways to try to find them, only to meet downed trees and other debris. News was particularly scarce from the southern and central parts of the island, as well the tiny island of Vieques to the east.

On Radio Isla Friday morning, Rosselló urged residents to stay in their homes.

"It's still not safe in the roads. There's still a great deal of flooding," he said. "Now is not the time — unless it's an emergency — to be on the roads."

He said that Puerto Rican residents and civilians have been essential in the rescue and recovery efforts.

"That solidarity is how we're going to be able to get people out of danger" and help lift Puerto Rico out of this, he said.

The enormity of what they had just been through — and what was yet to come — appeared to be sinking in for many people, including those who considered themselves hurricane-hardened.

"This storm was something," said Geraldo Ramirez, 36, a resident of San Juan's La Perla neighborhood. "I was here for Hurricane Georges back in '98, and that was a hard to believe, how badly it affected the island. But this, Maria, was something altogether different. I don't even have the words."

Ramirez lives in a small, three-story purple house near the waterfront on Calle San Miguel with his sister, her husband and their two children. His house, a sturdy cinder-block structure, was built 17 years ago, and did not suffer much structural damage. But rain and ocean water managed to find its way into every room in his house.

Asked when the power would likely return to his small neighborhood, he answered, without hesitating, "Three or four months, at least. Maybe six."

He added: "But it's okay, we will make do. We've are used to it and it's always the same. Georges, Hugo, we lose power and we lose water. But we know how to survive."

Authorities have been hampered in their ability to assess damage because foul weather continues to batter parts of the island, as well as the fact that the storm knocked out power and communication systems. But the breadth and depth of the devastation Puerto Ricans face as they begin to clear out and rebuild is clear in new photographs from above.

Photos taken from a helicopter surveying the damage in the southeast part of the island, encompassing an area that on a good day would be a two-hour drive from the capital of San Juan, show entire neighborhoods blanketed in murky water, the waves in some cases reaching near the first-floor windows. Tops of buildings were sliced open, their top-floor rooms visible like dollhouses.

"We saw houses with the roof ripped away totally," said Dennis M. Rivera Pichardo, a freelance photographer for The Washington Post. One shopping center had a huge hole in the roof, "open like a can of tuna," he said. "You could see all the merchandise, clothes hanging in the shelves."

How awful. @Destiny, have you heard from your BFF?

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Nothing from any of them. BFF is in one of the mountain towns, but some pictures are starting to come out and they aren’t good.

I’m just sitting here clicking refresh on FB and Twitter.

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Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so hoping you get good news soon.

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1 hour ago, Destiny said:

Nothing from any of them. BFF is in one of the mountain towns, but some pictures are starting to come out and they aren’t good.

Sounds very frighting. I do hope they are okay.  Let us know.

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Yeah. This is nerve-wracking, and it's not helped by media not seeming to give any fucks whatsoever about PR. 3+ million Americans, and no one in the media seems to give a fuck. 

I know BFF was ok initially cos he managed to let me know that he made it through the initial storm ok, but his town has apparently had catastrophic flooding and is still incommunicado. 

Other friends I have heard nothing since Tuesday. 

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2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"70,000 in Puerto Rico urged to evacuate immediately as dam is in 'imminent' danger of failure"

Evacuate?  Evacuate where? The sound of crickets from Washington.  What ever happened to America First? Puerto Rico are Americans after all.

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1 minute ago, onekidanddone said:

Evacuate?  Evacuate where? The sound of crickets from Washington.  What ever happened to America First? Puerto Rico are Americans after all.

I know, that was my thought. They're on an island. Kind of hard to evacuate. And, as far as the orange menace, Puerto Ricans aren't the "right" kind of Americans. They can't do anything for him, so they don't matter.

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The Capital Weather Gang published this article with lots of excellent and sobering images: "Category 5 hurricanes have hit 6 land areas dead-on in 2017, more than ever before"

Because of the large number of images, it's too difficult to quote here.

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Did I miss Trump going down to Puerto Rico to view the damage? Oh, that's right, they can't vote for President so... It's much more important to show support for white supremacists in Alabama.

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"‘If anyone can hear us … help.’ Puerto Rico’s mayors describe widespread devastation from Hurricane Maria"

Spoiler

SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — In the northern Puerto Rican town of Vega Baja, the floodwaters reached more than 10 feet. Stranded residents screamed “save me, save me,” using the lights in their cellphones to help rescue teams find them in the darkness, the town’s mayor said.

In Loiza, a north coastal town that already had been ravaged by Hurricane Irma, 90 percent of homes — 3,000 — were destroyed by Hurricane Maria just days later. In communities across the island, bridges collapsed and highways were severely damaged, isolating many residents. In Rio Grande, officials had yet to access a number of families stuck in their homes, three days after the powerful storm made landfall.

When speaking about his town’s destruction, Ramon Hernandez Torres, mayor of the southern city of Juana Díaz, took a long pause, his voice catching and his eyes filling with tears.

“It’s a total disaster,” he said.

Hurricane Maria pounded the entire island of Puerto Rico on Wednesday, but the scope of the damage had been speculative and unclear since, in large part because towns across the U.S. territory have been completely off the grid. Though images from the air showed incredible destruction, mayors were unable to reach central government for leadership and help because communication was impossible. No telephones, cellphones, or Internet. No power. No passage through roads that had been washed away or blocked with trees and power lines.

But on Saturday, for the first time in days, mayors and representatives from more than 50 municipalities across Puerto Rico met with government officials at the emergency operations command center here in the island’s capital city. Many of the mayors learned about the meeting through media reports over satellite radio the night before. One mayor said his staff was informed after a man ran to his offices with a note telling him to make his way to San Juan.

Approximately 20 other mayors across the island still have not been able to make contact with government officials, leaving major gaps in the broader understanding of the damage Maria left behind.

The mayors greeted each other with hugs and tears, and they pleaded with their governor for some of the things their communities need most: drinking water, prescription drugs, gasoline, oxygen tanks, and satellite phones. The entire population remains without electricity. Families everywhere are unable to buy food or medical treatment. Roads remain waterlogged, and looting has begun to take place at night.

“There is horror in the streets,” San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz said in a raw, emotional interview with The Washington Post. “People are actually becoming prisoners in their own homes.”

“Whenever I walk through San Juan,” Cruz said, she sees the “sheer pain in people’s eyes. . . . They’re kind of glazed, not because of what has happened but because of the difficulty of what will come,” she said. “I know we’re not going to get to everybody in time. . . . Two days ago I said I was concerned about that. Now I know we won’t get to everybody in time.”

Oscar Santiago, mayor of the northern coastal city of Vega Alta, said many of his community’s families refused to evacuate their flooded homes. One little girl was standing barefoot with her family on a roof, which was littered with nails, he said. When he asked her to put on some sandals, she told him: “The hurricane took them.”

Marcos Cruz Molina, mayor of Vega Baja, said even his own wooden home was destroyed, and he has since sought shelter with his parents. Jose Rodriguez, mayor of Hatillo, in the northwest, said “hundreds and hundreds” of homes in his town were obliterated. “It’s catastrophic,” he said.

The meeting in San Juan came a day after the governor urged residents downstream from Lake Guajataca — a population of nearly 70,000 — to evacuate amid fears that a dam holding the lake back might fail because of damage from Hurricane Maria’s floodwaters. Officials said the dam’s structural damage was caused by a “fissure,” a crack that had grown to a significant “rupture” by Saturday. The dam’s failure could lead to massive amounts of water flowing through coastal communities along a river’s path to the ocean, and authorities believed evacuation was the only option.

Local authorities said the actual number of residents remaining in those towns at risk of destruction was most likely much lower because of early overestimates, officials said. Evacuations continued on Saturday.

The official death toll on the island from Hurricane Maria has risen to 10. One died when he was struck in the head by a panel, another died in an accident with an excavating machine, three died in landslides, two in flooding in Toa Baja, and two police officers in Aguada drowned when the Culebrinas River overflowed.

One person in Arecibo died after being swept away by rising water. Officials believe there are probably others they haven’t yet been able to confirm.

At the intersection of Routes 2 and 1o in Arecibo, employees of the Gulf Express gas station and their families — about 20 people in all — were hard at work Saturday. Their boots and sneakers were caked with mud because there is mud everywhere: On their pants and shirts, in their cars and on the walls of their homes. The makeshift cleanup crew was using brooms to sweep out the grayish brown slop that lay two or three inches thick inside.

After Maria blew threw the city, taking down trees and power lines, the flash floods came.

“The water had to be at least six, maybe seven feet high,” said Nelson Rodriguez, an employee at the Gulf Express. “It took everything. All the medicine in the pharmacy, all the food, it’s gone.”

Every home and business in this part of Arecibo was affected by the flooding. Two blocks away from the gas station, Eduardo Carraquillo, 45, helped his father, Ismael Freytes, 69, clean the mud out of their yellow, first-floor apartment. Inside, a film, rising six feet high on the walls, marked where water stagnated for much of a full day.

“The water just pushed through the door, as if it had been left open,” Carraquillo said. “We all evacuated the day after the storm, because we were warned about the flash flood that might come. Everyone left, just to be safe, except for two older men that lived a few houses away. They just didn’t want to leave. When we came back, we found out the flood had killed them right there in that apartment.”

Some Puerto Rico officials believe it could be months before the island recovers and that it will be at least a year before some sense of normalcy returns.

Officials estimate it will take three weeks for hospitals to regain power, and about six months for the rest of the island to have electricity. By Saturday, 25 percent of the population had telecommunications connections.

Gov. Ricardo Rosselló announced efforts to centralize medical care and shelters for the elderly. He also plans to distribute 250 satellite phones among mayors to facilitate communication. He said he urged the mayors to develop a “buddy system” with other local officials.

Cruz, San Juan’s mayor, said she has never seen such devastation, but she also said she has never seen such determination to make it. She described a phrase she keeps hearing from residents: “Yo soy Boricua. I am from Puerto Rico.”

“That has become the very courageous way of saying we are going to overcome anything that comes our way,” she said.

A janitor stopped Cruz with a request on Friday: “Tell the world we’re here,” he said, Cruz recounted. “Tell everyone we’re fighting. Tell everyone that can listen that we are going to make it.”

With her voice faltering, Cruz echoed that cry: “If anyone can hear us … help.”

“Those are words that no society should have to endure alone or ever,” Cruz said. “What I would ask is not only for Puerto Rico, but for the entire Caribbean that has been hit so hard by this: Do not forget us and do not let us feel alone.

It's so heartbreaking.

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This is so enraging.  The fuck stick that calls himself our president is worrying about NFL players not standing during the national anthem and Steph Curry not wanting to meet his stupid ass when there are millions of AMERICAN CITIZENS who are in a disaster zone with no where to go and in desperate need of help.  REALLY??  THIS is what we're spending our time worrying about???  Can't that massive heart attack take him out yet? 

Or better yet, some sort of virus that only attacks the stupid fucks in DC that have an R after their name.

My heart is absolutely breaking for the people in Puerto Rico right now.  I have friends with family there and it's just... horrific

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I'm beyond fucking pissed, and what's sad is no one is covering PR, so no one is gonna call him out for it. 

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Does anyone have any organizations that aren't red cross to send money?! It's killing me also that NO ONE is talking about how they have to live for half a year without power and America isn't doing shit cause they don't care.

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