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Hurricane Fiona brought heavy rain in the Dominican Republic on Monday, triggering major flooding in Puerto Rico and widespread power outages on two Caribbean islands.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the storm strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane late Monday, forecasting continued overnight rain and the potential for new catastrophic flooding in eastern Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.
The NHC said the hurricane was still strengthening and warned that “life-threatening and catastrophic flooding and mudslides” were possible.
An AFP reporter at the scene said several roads around the Dominican resort of Punta Cana were flooded or severed by fallen trees or utility poles, and electricity was knocked out.
President Luis Abinad declared three eastern provinces disaster areas: La Alta Gracia – the seat of Punta Cana – El Cebo and the Mayor of Hato.
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Footage from local media showed residents of the east coast town of Iguy trying to salvage personal items in waist-deep water.
Eighteen of the island’s 32 provinces are on red alert, with nearly 800 people sheltering in safe areas, according to emergency services.
Fiona, with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph (155 kph), is expected to intensify into a Category 3 storm on Tuesday — making it the first major Atlantic hurricane of the season, according to the NHC.
After passing the Turks and Caicos Islands late Monday or early Tuesday, the storm is expected to move northward into the ocean later in the week — though it could be dangerously close to little Bermuda.
In Puerto Rico — where it’s still raining — the storm has caused catastrophic damage since Sunday, with more than 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rain falling in some areas, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said.
Nelly Marrero returned to her home in Toa Baja, north of the U.S. island territory, Monday afternoon to clear mud that had poured in after she was evacuated a day earlier.
“Thank God, I have food and water,” she told AFP by phone after losing everything when Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico five years ago.
Marrero rushed into the rain with his daughter and three young grandsons to seek shelter at a relative’s house when the flood sirens went off.
“These babies are very difficult – they’re crying and they don’t understand what’s going on,” she said.
Across Puerto Rico, Fiona caused landslides, blocked roads and collapsed trees, power lines and bridges, Pierluisi said.
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According to authorities, a man died indirectly from a power outage — being burned while trying to refill his generator.
Fernando Vera, a resident of the town of Utuado, told ABC NPR that his family never fully recovered from the devastation of Maria – which attacked the island with Irma in 2017 one of two hurricanes.
“We’re still struggling with the consequences for Maria, and it’s a little difficult knowing we might have to start over,” Villa said.
The governor said Fiona caused “unprecedented” flooding.
“Unfortunately, we are expecting more rain across the island today and tomorrow,” he said.
The governor said Puerto Rico, an island of 3 million people, was without power for most of it, but about 100,000 customers had power restored on Monday.
The hurricane also left about 196,000 people without drinking water due to power outages and flooded rivers, officials said.
‘restart’
Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico as a Category 1 hurricane, at the lowest end of the Saffir-Simpson Category 5 hurricane scale.
The storm had already killed one person – a man after his house was swept away by floodwaters in the overseas sector of the French island of Guadeloupe, when Fiona was still classified as a tropical storm.
U.S. President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency in Puerto Rico, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide assistance.
The former Spanish colony became a U.S. territory in the late 19th century, before gaining the status of a United Free State in 1950.
After years of financial distress and recession, in 2017 Puerto Rico declared the largest bankruptcy in the history of a local government in the United States.
Later that year, Irma and Maria’s double whammy added to the pain, disrupting the island’s power grid — which had been plagued by major infrastructure problems for years.
The grid was privatized in June 2021 to address the blackout, but the problem persists, with the entire island without power earlier this year.
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