Hurricane Fiona advances after devastating Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic

Hurricane Fiona threatens more flooding as it hits the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday, after devastating Puerto Rico – cutting power to the vast majority of its 3.1 million residents – before leaving more than a million without running water in the Dominican Republic.

Fiona strengthened into a major hurricane – a Category 3, with sustained winds of over 178 km/h – and was centered near Grand Turk Island around 9 am ET.

Heavy rains threatened “life-threatening flooding” during the afternoon in the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British territory of about 38,000 people, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

The Dominican Republic is still dealing with Fiona’s ruinous path – the storm’s outer tracks could still cause flooding after crossing the Caribbean country on Monday. AND Puerto Rico, which Fiona crossed a day earlier, causing nearly a blackout and leaving damage not seen there since Hurricane Maria made landfall five years ago, officials said.

Nearly 800 people were rescued by emergency teams in the Dominican Republic, according to the country’s director of emergency management operations, Juan Manuel Mendez. At least 519 people were taking refuge in the country’s 29 shelters on Monday, he said.

At least four people have died in bad weather, including one in the French territory of Guadeloupe, which Fiona attacked late last week; two in Puerto Rico; and one in the Dominican Republic, officials said.

As of Monday afternoon, at least 1,018,564 customers across the Dominican Republic did not have access to running water as 59 aqueducts were out of service and several others were only partially functioning, according to Jose Luis German Mejia, a national management official. of emergencies.

Some were also without electricity as 10 electrical circuits went offline, emergency management officials said. It is unclear how many people are affected by the outages.

Fiona strengthens as she moves north

Fiona intensified into a Category 3 storm as it moved away from the Dominican Republic’s north coast on Tuesday. At around 9 am (Brasília time), it had maximum sustained winds of 185km/h, with higher gusts, according to the Hurricane Center.

This is the first major hurricane – Category 3 or higher – of this year’s Atlantic hurricane season.

“Heavy rains around central Fiona impact Turks and Caicos through this afternoon with continued life-threatening flooding,” the hurricane center said. These islands can see 100 to 200 millimeters of rain, in addition to what they have previously received, as well as thunderstorms.

Strengthening is expected as Fiona moves away from the Turks and Caicos Islands. It could be a Category 4 storm – sustained winds of 130-156 mph – early Wednesday over the Atlantic.

It is expected to pass near or far west of Bermuda early on Friday, and could still be in Category 4 when that happens, forecasters say.

Fiona leaves Puerto Rico devastated

Fiona’s outer bands were still lashing out at Puerto Rico on Monday, drenching regions already struggling with dangerous flooding and destruction. As Tuesday marks the 5-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria’s catastrophic passage, some who lived through the 2017 crisis say the destruction from Fiona’s floods could be even more severe.

Juan Miguel Gonzalez, a business owner in Puerto Rico, told CNN that his neighborhood had not yet completed Maria’s recovery when Fiona attacked. But this time, he says, the floods have brought even more profound damage to their homes.

“Many people – more than (during) Maria – have lost their homes now… lost everything in their homes because of the floods,” Gonzalez told CNN on Monday. “Maria was strong wind. But this one, with all the rain, destroyed everything in the house.”

Most of the damage inflicted on the island is rain-related, Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi told CNN on Monday night.

More than 1.18 million of the island’s roughly 1.47 million utility customers were still without power as of early Tuesday, according to estimates from PowerOutage.us, which notes that updated information on restoration are limited.

Pierluisi said he expects it will be “a matter of days” to restore power to most customers. The company that oversees the territory’s power grid, LUMA Energy, previously said that outages to transmission lines were contributing to the blackout and on Tuesday said it had restored power to more than 280,000 customers.

Critically, power was restored to one of Puerto Rico’s most vital medical facilities on Monday, according to the territory’s health secretary, Dr. Carlos Mellado Lopez. “The power system in all hospitals in the Medical Center Complex has been restored,” Mellado said in a tweet Sunday night. “Our patients are safe and getting the medical care they need.”

Many of those without power also lack water, as the impacts of the rains and floods on filtration systems left only about 35% of customers with water service on Monday, the governor said.

Emergency crews battled the relentless rain to rescue approximately 1,000 people by midday on Monday, said Major General José Reyes, adjutant general of the Puerto Rico National Guard. In addition to the hundreds of members of the Puerto Rico National Guard helping with rescue and recovery efforts, the White House said on Monday that President Joe Biden told Pierluisi during a phone call that federal support will increase in the coming days.

“As damage assessments are conducted, the president said the number of support personnel will increase substantially,” the White House said. New York Governor Kathy Hochul also announced that the state will send 100 state troopers to help with relief efforts in Puerto Rico. She also said New York Power Authority teams are available to help restore power.