It wiped out roads, leaving less than 8 percent of them open a month after the hurricane. The storm caused structural damage to an unknown number of buildings and destroyed nearly all road signs and traffic lights. Hurricane María's damage has been severe and lasting. In Toa Baja, part of the San Juan metropolitan area, families awaited rescue from their rooftops after the La Plata River filled its alluvial valley. Thirty rivers in Puerto Rico reached major flood stage, and 13 of those reached or exceeded record-flood stage.
Over 48 hours, María dropped 380 to 500 millimeters (15 to 20 inches) of rain in most areas, with some spots receiving even higher amounts. Winds weren't the only destructive force María unleashed on Puerto Rico. Hurricane María destroyed Puerto Rico's radar, providing a low-end estimate to the storm's wind speeds over the island. Nexrad doppler radars, with their geometric panels (left), are designed to withstand wind gusts up to 116 knots (133 miles per hour). María destroyed what was still functioning in Puerto Rico's electrical grid after Irma, leaving all residents across the island completely without power. It severely damaged 95 percent of cell towers, cutting off nearly all cell phone communication. That radar was designed to withstand maximum winds of 116 knots (133 miles per hour), so this value provides a low-end estimate of the storm’s winds.Īs the eye of the storm tracked toward the west-northwest over Puerto Rico, the intense winds broke and uprooted trees, leaving most of those still standing without any leaves. The storm also destroyed the weather radar operated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Weather Service.
When María reached the island, it was a Category 4 storm, although meteorologists have no land-based records of María's maximum winds because the storm damaged most of Puerto Rico's wind sensors. NASA Earth Observatory images based on a variety of satellite sensors, including NOAA/NASA's Suomi NPP satellite, which detects visible light at night, and Landsat and other high-resolution imagers that map terrain and roads. The storm left much of the island in the dark. Satellite-based images of the density of nighttime lights across eastern Puerto Rico before (left) and after (right) Hurricane María, on September 27 and 28.
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