Hurricane Maria threatens Puerto Rico, other Caribbean islands

This music video says about itself:

West Side Story – Maria (Carreras)

19 December 2012

MARIA

Tony: Josep Carreras

Conductor: Leonard Bernstein
Music: Leonard Bernstein
Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim

Maria is a very widespread women’s name; with variations in some languages like Mary in English and Mariam in Arabic.

In the song Maria in the musical West Side Story, it stands for a lovely Puerto Rican girl whom the character Tony falls in love with.

The Maria we read about these days has also to do with Puerto Rico, but is far from lovely.

From the Rolling Harbour Abaco blog about the Bahamas:

HURRICANE MARIA: TRACKING UPDATE SEP 19th (Abaco, Bahamas)

September 19, 2017

In the life of a massive Cat. 5 hurricane, a lot can happen over 24 hours. One source reports ‘mind-boggling devastation’ on Dominica. Other islands on the storm’s path are braced for their own tragedies for their populations, many still reeling from the passage of Irma just 2 weeks ago. Here are the latest trackers for 11.00 am EDT today; and a calculated prediction for the position on Friday midnight.

Hurricane Maria

From the Daily Telegraph in Britain:

Live

Hurricane Maria: Dominica ‘devastated’ as storm heads to Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands – latest news

19 September 2017 • 5:17pm

Hurricane Maria makes landfall as maximum category five storm

‘Merciless’ 160mph winds tear through Caribbean islands

‘Rough! Rough! Rough!’ Dominica PM’s dramatic Facebook posts

Storm set to batter Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands next

Forecasters warn Maria poses ‘potentially catastrophic’ threat

Many islands in path are still recovering from Hurricane Irma

Experts’ view: Why have there been so many hurricanes lately?

About Puerto Rico, from Bloomberg news agency today:

The bankrupt island, already contending with the aftermath of a storm [Irma] that left as much as $1 billion of damage and hundreds of thousands still without power, faces even more upheaval with Hurricane Maria set to hit as soon as Tuesday night. The government ordered rationing of basic necessities, including water and batteries, although those items were already gone from some San Juan store shelves as residents prepared for what could be the worst storm for the U.S. territory in decades.

In 1953 and after, all hurricanes got female names; suggesting women are to blame for bad things. In 1979, this changed: now, it is alternating male and female names.

However, there have been suggestions to give destructive hurricanes the names, not of men or women, but of Big Oil corporations whose climate change is making destructive hurricanes worse. So that would be not Hurricane Harvey, but Hurricane Shell. Hurricane BP, not Hurricane Irma. Or the hurricanes might be named after the big bosses of Big Oil; not Hurricane Maria, but Hurricane Tillerson; after Rex Tillerson, who went from ExxonMobil CEO to Donald Trump‘s Secretary of State.

This video says about itself:

‘Hurricane Chevron‘. Calling it as it is

10 September 2017

Can we link the recent hurricanes with carbon footprints? Are oil corporations somehow responsible? A recent study says the answer is yes.