Just hours after smashing into the Caribbean island of Dominica with 160 mph winds, Hurricane Maria has made landfall near Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Wednesday.
The hurricane is about 35 miles (55 km) southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico with maximum sustained winds of 155 miles per hour (250 km per hour), the NHC said, adding that it is moving in a north-westerly direction at 10 mph (17 km/h).
The storm is on a track to wallop Puerto Rico “with a force and violence that we haven’t seen for several generations,” the territory’s governor said.
Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit sent a series of dramatic posts on his Facebook page as the storm blew over the tiny country Monday night — but then stopped suddenly as phone and internet connections with the country seemed to drop.
“So far the winds have swept away
