In Puerto Rico, food is being rationed.

There are lines to buy fuel and to get into shelters.

You see the incredible force of the winds.

That's when they slammed into the capital of Puerto Rico San Juan.

I'm 54 years old. I've never seen devastation like this one.

The scarce images coming out of Puerto Rico show a stunning amount of loss and chaos, flooding

rivers, toppled trees and power lines, people waiting chest deep through water, or waiting

for rescue on rooftops. Perhaps due to disaster fatigue, perhaps due to the territory's second-class status,

perhaps simply due to a paucity of pictures, the media coverage relative to the month's

previous storms has been perfunctory. Still from the scant reports emerging from the ravaged

island since Maria made landfall Wednesday morning,

there is one detail that has stood out. The most severe impact was on Puerto Rico's power grid,

and the entire island is still without electricity. The most powerful storm to hit Puerto Rico

in more than 80 years has knocked out power to the entire island.

And officials there predicting some areas will be out of electricity for up to six months.

Three and a half million American citizens may be out of power and electrically pumped water

for months, which is destined to all but shut down much of the economy and the

society. But the storm damage has darker ramifications still. Yarmar Benia is currently a visiting

scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation, where she's working on a book about the Puerto Rican

political and economic crisis.

She's also a professor of anthropology and Caribbean Studies at Rutgers University.

Yarramore, welcome back to the show.

...