The enor­mous dam­age caused by Hur­ri­cane Maria is start­ing to be known by Ama­teur Radio after the Cat­e­go­ry 5 storm cut through the Caribbean nations includ­ing Puer­to Rico, Domini­ca and Turks and Caicos.

The Hur­ri­cane has down trees, blocked roads, unroofed build­ings, caused land­slides and flood­ing. Pow­er, tele­phone and inter­net was out of action.

The fre­quen­cies known to be in use by some sta­tions of Puer­to Rico are 7.085–7.095 with Rafael Ramirez HI8OX of Domini­can Repub­lic unable to imme­di­ate­ly con­tact some sta­tions in that country.

He also reports activ­i­ty on air by Red Cross in Puer­to Rico, and SATERN of the Sal­va­tion Army in the US. Author­i­ties are pre­dict­ing that dis­as­ter recov­ery in Puer­to Rico will take a long time.

The British over­seas ter­ri­to­ry of Turks and Caicos an arch­i­pel­ago has also been affected.

— Jim Lin­ton VK3PC, Chair­man IARU Region 3 Dis­as­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Committee