© Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesPuerto Rico's governor said about 95% of Puerto Rico's power could be restored by mid-December.
It has been 36 days since Category 4 Hurricane Maria made landfall on Puerto Rico with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph, and about 75 percent of the island's 3.4 million residents are still without electricity, with tens of thousands more still in the dark in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Based on the duration and the number of people affected, this is
the largest blackout in U.S. history, the economic research firm Rhodium Group (RHG) reported Thursday.
Maria was the strongest Puerto Rico hurricane landfall since the Category 5
September 1928 San Felipe/Lake Okeechobee hurricane.
A wind gust to 137 mph was measured in Isla Culebrita, Puerto Rico, while San Juan clocked a 95-mph gust at Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport.
Prior to both
Irma and
Maria, only
four other Category 4 hurricanes tracked within 75 miles of central Puerto Rico in historical records dating to the late 19th century. Hurricane Hugo in 1989 was the last to do that prior to 2017, though it had weakened to a
Category 3 hurricane as it clipped the northeastern tip of Puerto Rico, according to the NOAA best tracks database.
There were already 61,000 customers without power in Puerto Rico due to Irma the day before Maria made landfall on Sept. 20, according to RHG. A customer is defined as a household or business, not an individual.
Comment: Elsewhere in Asia recently 3 farmers were killed by a lightning bolt in Sri Lanka