Hurricane Fiona hit the Dominican Republic on Monday after knocking out power and causing flooding and landslides in Puerto Rico, where the governor said the damage was “catastrophic”.
No deaths have been reported, but authorities in the US territory say it is too early to estimate the damage caused by the hurricane, which is forecast to cause torrential rain in Puerto Rico on Monday. Up to 76 centimetres of rainfall was forecast for eastern and southern regions of Puerto Rico.
Ernesto Morales, meteorologist at the National Meteorological Service in San Juan, said the flooding had reached “historic levels” and authorities had evacuated or rescued hundreds of people on the island.
The damage we are seeing is catastrophic – said Governor Pedro Pierluisi. As of Sunday evening, more than 1,000 people with around 80 pets had sought shelter across the island, most of them on the southern coast.
Brown water from the streets rushed into houses and even flooded a runway airport in southern Puerto Rico. Fiona also tore asphalt from roads and washed away a bridge in the central mountain town of Utuado that police say was erected by the National Guard after Hurricane Maria struck as a Category 4 storm in 2017.
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The storm knocked the roofs off several houses. More than 3,000 homes still have only a blue tarp over their roofs, and infrastructure remains weak, including the power grid. Power outages remain frequent and reconstruction has only just begun. Residents are worried about whether they will be able to get to work because of the public transport outages and when the electricity will be restored.
Fiona was centered 85 kilometers southeast of Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, with maximum sustained winds of 140 kilometers per hour on Sunday night, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. It was moving northwest at 15 kilometres per hour.
The hurricane struck on the anniversary of Hurricane Hugo, which made landfall as a Category 3 storm in 1989, Bloomberg reports.
US President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency on US soil as the storm approached the southwest corner of the island.
Fiona is forecast to hit the Dominican Republic early Monday morning, followed by northern Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands with heavy rainfall. On Tuesday, it could threaten the southernmost Bahamas. Hurricane warnings have been issued for the eastern coast of the Dominican Republic from Cabo Caucedo to Cabo Frances Viejo, and the Turks and Caicos Islands.