Hurricane Fiona evolved into a powerful Category 4 storm on Wednesday as it headed toward Bermuda after hitting Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and the Turks and Caicos Islands with heavy rain and flooding, a U.S. government agency said. United.
Fiona had winds of up to 215 kilometers per hour and is expected to strengthen as it moves north, the National Hurricane Center said in a report on Wednesday.
“On the predicted track, downtown Fiona will continue to move away from the Turks and Caicos Islands today and will approach Bermuda on Thursday. [22],” the agency said.
The Bermuda Weather Service has issued a tropical storm watch for the archipelago, which is more than 960 kilometers east of the US state of North Carolina, as Fiona heads west of the British Overseas Territory. Hurricane-force winds are a possibility, depending on the storm’s path, he said.
“External rain bands will sweep across the region bringing rain showers, thunderstorms and heavy rain,” the weather service said in its forecast for Thursday (22) and Friday (23).
Fiona has taken four lives in Puerto Rico so far, according to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency. The storm hit the island, a US territory, on Sunday, cutting off power to the island and dumping large amounts of rain. A fifth person was killed in Guadeloupe earlier in the week.
An estimated 1.2 million homes and businesses remained without power in Puerto Rico as of Wednesday morning, according to poweroutages.com. LUMA Energy said the complete restoration of all 1.5 million customers could take several days.
The pace of power restoration is faster than after Hurricane Maria in 2017, when the entire island was without power for a week.
In the neighboring Dominican Republic, Fiona caused severe flooding that limited road access to villages, forced 12,500 people from their homes and cut power to hundreds of thousands of people.
Fiona was the first hurricane to directly hit the Dominican Republic since Jeanne left severe damage in the east of the country in 2004.
US Health Secretary Xavier Becerra declared a public health emergency for Puerto Rico on Tuesday night, freeing up federal funds and equipment to help the island.
Source: CNN Brasil
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