Hurricane Maria paints bullseye on Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

Puerto Rico, an island of about 3.4 million residents already experiencing a financial crisis was battered by Hurricane Irma only two weeks ago, causing up to $1 billion worth of damage.

Before the storm reaches Puerto Rico, it will sweep past the Virgin Islands, another U.S. territory wracked by Irma, and other nearby islands. The National Hurricane Center predicts that the center of “potentially catastrophic” Maria heads west northwest and could reach Puerto Rico by early Wednesday, but could feel tropical force effects from the storm on Tuesday. For Puerto Rico, as well as the U.S. Virgin Islands, the NHC said in its 11 a.m. Eastern time advisory that “preparations against life-threatening storm surge and rainfall, flooding and destructive winds should be rushed to completion.”

Maria, expected to remain at least a Category 4 hurricane with at least 130 mph winds into Wednesday, will bring with it the threat of rainfall totals in double-digit inches to the two territories, including over 20 inches in some isolates areas; a “dangerous” combination of storm surge and tide that could reach between 6 and 9 feet is also possible.

“Locations may be uninhabitable for weeks or months,” said the National Weather Service of the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

“No generation has seen a hurricane like this since San Felipe II in 1928. This is an unprecedented atmospheric system,” said Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello, who encouraged people to evacuate from areas vulnerable to flooding. He said that emergency rescue teams will not be able to act once winds reach 50 mph and that 500 shelters have been prepared across the island. A notice from the Puerto Rico government said these shelters has an emergency capacity for up to 133,352 people and cautioned that rescue teams would likely not be able available for the next couple of days.

President Trump approved emergency declarations Monday for both the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.

On Dominica, where Maria made landfall as a Category 5 storm late Monday evening, “widespread devastation” occurred, according to the prime minister of the former British colony with about 72,000 residents. Winds associated with Maria “are merciless!”, said Dominca Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, who on Facebook revealed he was rescued after there was flooding in his house and the roof blew off. Similar reports of damage are being made across the island. “We shall survive by the grace of God!”, the prime minister added.

Towards the end of the week Maria is expected to brush past the Dominican Republic, bringing with it damaging winds and flooding, and track north away from the Caribbean. Beyond that the hurricane’s future is uncertain, including how it could impact the U.S. East Coast.

Forecasters say that the terrain on Puerto Rico may alter Maria’s expected path. Also in play is Hurricane Jose, which is curling clockwise out into the Atlantic over the course of the week, weakening into a tropical storm.

According to Weather.com, if Jose were to stall, that would keep an area of high pressure over the East Coast and help send Maria out farther into the Atlantic Ocean to the north northeast, though rough surf would still be an issue for the coastline through the end of September.

Also a possibility is what meteorologists call the “Fujiwara Effect,” in which Maria and Jose could perform a sort-of dance around each other, resulting in a diminished Jose getting slung westward toward the East Coast while Maria heads north out into the Atlantic Ocean.