Hurricane Maria devastates Dominica and knocks out Puerto Rico

Dominica, an island in the Caribbean, was devastated by Hurricane Maria, which made landfall overnight on 18th September 2017. Maria then went on to hit the southernmost Virgin Islands and completely took out Puerto Rico's energy grid, which could take months to fix.

Prior to making landfall on Dominica, the storm strengthened from a category 1 to a category 5 in less than a day. The sustained winds topping 175 mph even tore the roof of Dominica's Prime Minister’s residence. After briefly being downgraded to a category 4 storm, it returned to a category 5 hurricane briefly, then hit Puerto Rico as a category 4 - the first hurricane of its strength to do so since 1932 - with high winds up to 155 mph and life-threatening flooding.

Maria is now a category 3 storm with winds of 115 mph. It previously also hit the islands of Guadeloupe and the US territory of St Croix, and is on route to the Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos Islands and the southeastern Bahamas.

Some of these areas were also effected by Hurricane Irma earlier this month. There are concerns that heavy rain could cause landslides, and that a predicted storm surge of up to 9 feet (2.7 m) could inundate low-lying areas.

*This article will be update as more news become available*

Met Office update and forecast (Source: Met Office YouTube channel):

Footage as it hits Dominica (Source: #Civil Disturbia via YouTube):