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CNN
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Hurricane Fiona As it continues to pummel Puerto Rico, it pummels the Dominican Republic — nearly knocking out the island’s power and causing dangerous flooding.
Fiona made landfall in the Dominican Republic on Monday morning after making landfall southwest of Puerto Rico the day before.
But Puerto Rico, which remains almost entirely under a flood or flood warning, is far from done hitting. Hurricane Maria destroyed US territory.
An area north of Ponce has reported more than 2 feet of rain in the past 24 hours. Another 4 to 6 inches or more of rain is expected in southern Puerto Rico early this week, meaning Fiona will leave the island drenched with 12 to 30 inches of rain, according to the Miami-based National Hurricane Center.
“These rainfall amounts will continue to cause life-threatening and catastrophic flooding along with mudslides and mudslides in Puerto Rico,” the hurricane center said.
Fiona has already become deadly in the Caribbean. At least one person is reported dead The city of Basse-Terre was seriously damagedGuadeloupe, the capital of the French territory, said the vice president of the territory’s environmental agency.
And Fiona could become a major hurricane on Wednesday wind gusts up to 111 miles per hour. That would make Fiona the first major Atlantic hurricane of the year, the National Hurricane Center said.
Officials said more than 1.4 million electric customers (such as homes and businesses) lost power in Puerto Rico. On Monday morning the whole island was dark, PowerOutage.us informed.
It could be days before power is restored in Puerto Rico, as daily high temperatures are forecast to reach the mid-80s to mid-90s after Monday.
LUMA Energy said there were several transmission line outages causing power outages. Puerto Rico’s governor, power will be restored “gradually”. Pedro Pierluisi wrote on his Facebook page.
Late Monday morning, a bit of good news from the island’s capital: The power system has been restored for hospitals in San Juan’s medical complex, Puerto Rico Health Secretary Dr. Carlos Mellado Lopez said. According to the Puerto Rico Department of Health, the complex is the most important on the island and covers 227 hectares.
“Power has been restored to all hospitals in the Medical Center Complex,” Mellado tweeted Sunday night. “Our patients are safe and are receiving the medical care they need.”
The hurricane hit the Dominican Republic community of Boca de Yuma on Monday morning, packing maximum sustained winds of 90 miles per hour, the National Hurricane Center said.
Eastern parts of the Dominican Republic could also see flooding, mudslides or landslides, the hurricane center said. Fiona could drop up to 12 inches of rain across eastern and northern parts of the country.
More significant strengthening is expected as Fiona moves northward over warmer water as it moves away from the northern coast of the Dominican Republic.
Tropical storm conditions are expected in the southeastern Bahamas late Monday or early Tuesday, and Fiona is expected to affect the eastern Turks and Caicos Islands by Tuesday morning.
“Fiona will continue to approach Bermuda as a major hurricane on Friday, turning north and then northeast this week,” CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller said.
Power outages have become a familiar crisis for many in Puerto Rico. Just 5 months ago, residents were suffering another lighting on the island after a fire broke out at the power station.
Some parts of the island still bear the scars of Maria caused catastrophic damage to infrastructure; It took about a year to restore electricity to the island.
Samuel Rivera and his mother, Lourdes Rodriguez, lived without power for about a year after Maria, Rivera told CNN’s Layla Santiago. On Sunday morning, they lost power again, creating similar scares as they did five years ago.
They also expressed concern that a nearby river would flood and that trees surrounding their homes could be uprooted by strong winds.
Easily flowing waters deleted the bridge, shows a video of the dangerous flood, taking the structure downstream. Elsewhere in Arecibo, another video by Samuel De Jesús shows the fast-moving waters overrunning large construction machines and all the trees as the rain falls in sheets.
As of Sunday afternoon, many rivers on the east side of the island were in moderate to major flood stages, including one southeast river that rose more than 12 feet in less than seven hours.
US President Joe Biden on Sunday morning approved a state of emergency to provide federal aid to disaster relief efforts.
Anne Bink, FEMA’s assistant administrator for Response and Recovery, said more than 300 FEMA emergency workers were on the ground to respond to the crisis.
“Our hearts go out to the residents who are experiencing yet another catastrophic event five years later,” Bink said, nodding to Maria. According to him, this time FEMA plans to implement the lessons learned from the 2017 crisis.
“We were more prepared. We now have four warehouses strategically located on the island that contain commodities, exponentially larger supplies than in the past,” Bink said.
“We’re proactively there to make sure we’re coordinating and getting way ahead of any storm. And all the planning efforts we put into those blue-sky days can pay off when it rains.”
