Resumen
Hurricane Maria, which made landfall in Puerto Rico on September 2017, was the worst natural disaster ever to befall the U.S. commonwealth, and also the deadliest storm of the record-setting 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. With peak sustained winds of 175 miles per hour, Maria is officially a Category 5 hurricane, and the 10th most-intense hurricane on record. After devastating Dominica, leaving the island practically denuded of vegetation and housing, Maria moved on (slightly weakened) to Puerto Rico. The official confirmed death toll was 64, but the actual death toll is believed to be much higher, between 500 and 1,000. Property damage was extreme. Total losses came to nearly $100 billion, making Maria the third-costliest hurricane on record. The electrical grid in particular, already weakened two weeks before by Hurricane Irma, was essentially wiped out?Puerto Rico has 2,400 miles of transmission lines and 30,000 miles of distribution lines with 300 sub-stations across the island, and it?s estimated that 80 percent of electrical facilities were destroyed.