Hurricane Fiona continued to dump rain on Puerto Rico on Monday, knocking out power and water to most of the island as National Guard troops rescued hundreds of stranded residents.
The hurricane hit Puerto Rico’s southwest coast on Sunday, causing landslides, knocking out the power grid, and ripping up and flinging asphalt from roads. The governor warned that restoring power could take several days.
Luma, the company in charge of power transmission and distribution in Puerto Rico, said bad weather had disrupted transmission lines, resulting in a blackout across the entire island, according to NBC News.
Generators powered the health centers, some of which had failed, according to Health Secretary Carlos Mellado, NBC News reported. Crews started to repair generators at the Comprehensive Cancer Center, which had to evacuate several patients.
“The Emergency Fund of the Government of (Puerto Rico) is available for the 78 municipalities,” Governor Pierluisi said on Twitter, “I call on the mayors who need it to request it through the Emergency Operations Center.” He promised to “continue to be available 24/7 to channel the needs of the municipalities.”
Fiona, which had strengthened to a Category 3 hurricane with winds of more than 111 mph early Tuesday, was centered just off Grand Turk Island around 8 a.m. ET, NOAA said in a bulletin. The heavy rains caused “life-threatening flooding” in Turks and Caicos, a British territory of about 38,000.
Rescued from Hurricane Fiona’s floodwaters by the Puerto Rican national guard, Ada Belmont Plaza told The New York Times, “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life, not even Maria.”
Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in 2017; it was a Category 4 storm that struck on September 20, 2017, destroying the island’s power grid and causing nearly 3,000 deaths, according to NBC News. Fiona hit just two days before Maria’s anniversary and also struck on the 33rd anniversary of Hurricane Hugo, which hit Puerto Rico as a Category 3 storm in 1989.
As the eye of the storm approached Puerto Rico’s southwest corner, the U.S. president declared a state of emergency.
The action directed the Department of Homeland Security’s Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to coordinate all disaster relief efforts to alleviate the hardship and suffering caused by the emergency on the island’s population.
The declaration of a state of emergency also allows the government to provide appropriate assistance for required emergency measures authorized under Title V of the Stafford Act. The goals are to save lives, protect property, public health, and safety, and lessen or eliminate hazards.
Fiona had winds of up to 115 mph as of Tuesday morning, making it a Category 3 hurricane. According to the hurricane center’s intensity forecast, Fiona could strengthen further and become a Category 4 hurricane with winds of up to 140 mph in the coming days.
“Storm surge could raise water levels by as much as 5 to 8 feet above normal tide levels along the immediate coast in areas of onshore winds in the Turks and Caicos through today,” according to NOAA’s bulletin on Tuesday.