As Hurricane Maria Homes in on Puerto Rico, Many Say They Won't Evacuate
Even some Puerto Ricans living in houses of wood and corrugated zinc say they don't want to go to ill-prepared shelters.
PABLO VENES
09.19.17 7:36 AM ET
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico—The quiet, peaceful ambience of Ponce, a municipality on the southern coast of Puerto Rico, was interrupted Tuesday by a loud siren urging the residents to begin evacuating their homes because Maria, a new and powerful category 5 hurricane, is headed their way.
Ponce is just one of the 44 municipalities that have activated the compulsory evacuation process. The whole island has not yet recovered from Hurricane Irma, which hit a glancing blow. Irma made a huge impact on the power lines, leaving more than 1.2 million residents in the dark.
Now, Maria is barrelling right toward the populous heart of Puerto Rico. Its sustained winds—not gusts—are 160 miles per hour, and unlike Irma it is expected to dump a huge amount of water, causing mudslides in addition to other damage.
It has devastated the little island of Dominica already. Whether it will hit the continental United States at week's end remains an open question, but it looks like there's no way for Puerto Rico to escape the hurricane's landfall on Wednesday.
"We've already begun the preparation process and the best thing is for them to leave their homes and find shelter," said María Meléndez, the mayor of Ponce, accompanied by the governor of Puerto Rico, Ricardo Rosselló, and personnel of the Department of Public Security and the National Guard mobilizing evacuees.
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