The eye of Hurricane Maria made landfall in Puerto Rico on Wednesday, pummeling the island as a Category Four storm with lashing rain and winds of 250 kilometers per hour, the US National Hurricane Center said.
The center of the storm came ashore near Yabucoa in southeastern Puerto Rico around 6:15 am (1015 GMT), the forecasters said.
"The wind sounds like a woman screaming at the top of her lungs!" photographer and storm chaser Mike Theiss posted on Twitter early today.
Puerto Rico was expected to bear the full brunt of the hurricane, which was forecast to rake across the length of the island.
As of 6:35 am, Maria was moving northwest at 10 miles per hour.