Hurricane Maria slams Puerto Rico

Hurricane Maria crashed into the southeast coast of Puerto Rico early Wednesday morning as one of the strongest storms to ever make landfall in the United States or one of its territories. The Category 4 storm hit the coastal town of Yabucoa with winds of 155 mph, 2 mph shy of a Category 5 hurricane. Forecasters warned the storm would punish the island, home to 3.3 million people, for 12 to 24 hours. Maria killed at least nine people in its path through the Caribbean earlier this week. Early reports in Puerto Rico include widespread flooding in the capital of San Juan and winds tearing doors and roofs off houses and pulling trees out of the ground. Nearly 900,000 people on the island are already without power, and officials say the storm could decimate the power company’s infrastructure. More than 10,000 people, with 189 pets, are in shelters throughout the island territory, according to an early morning tweet by Gov. Ricardo Rosselló. “This is total devastation,” Carlos Mercader, a spokesman for the governor, told CNN. “Puerto Rico, in terms of the infrastructure, will not be the same. … This is something of historic proportions.”