Puerto Rico

Hurricane Maria made landfall near the city of Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, at around 6:15 am Wednesday, according to the National Hurricane Center, battering the densely populated eastern side of the island with torrential rains and 155 mph gusts as hundreds of thousands of people hunkered down in one of the island's 500 storm shelters in hopes of riding out the second major hurricane to impact the island within two weeks.

Category 4 Maria slammed the island with winds of 155 mph, just 2 mph short of category 5 status.

In less than two days, Hurricane Maria has strengthened from a tropical storm to a powerful category five hurricane, dubbed in no uncertain terms as "catastrophic" by the NHC. Though it has been downgraded to a category 4 overnight, the storm made landfall on the tiny Caribbean island of Dominica, leaving it utterly “devastated,” according to the island’s prime minister.

"We're just waiting for daybreak to do an assessment of the damage," Dominica Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit told CNN's Rosemary Church.

By John Mauldin from Mauldin economics

After laying waste to the Northern Caribbean and leaving most of bankrupt Puerto Rico without power - perhaps for months - Hurricane Irma, still a category five storm, is expected to make landfall near Miami this weekend. Florida Gov. Rick Scott has already declared a state of emergency, and last night more than 100,000 Miami-Dade residents in Miami Beach and low-lying mainland areas were instructed to leave their homes by Miami Mayor Carlos Gimenez, who issued his first evacuation order.