Samantha Schmidt and Sandhya Somashekhar report for The Washington Post:
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.
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