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| Photo Credit: AP. |
HAVANA (AP) — Puerto Ricans braced for severe wind and rain as Tropical Storm Fiona bore down amid expectations it would grow into a hurricane before striking the U.S. territory’s southern coast on Sunday.
Forecasters
said “historic” levels of rain were expected to produce landslides and heavy
flooding, with up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) forecast in isolated areas.
“It’s time
to take action and be concerned,” said Nino Correa, Puerto Rico’s emergency
management commissioner.
Fiona was
centered 65 miles (105 kilometers) southeast of Ponce, Puerto Rico, early
Sunday. It had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph) and was moving west-northwest
at 8 mph (13 kph).
The storm
was forecast to pummel cities and towns along Puerto Rico’s southern coast that
have not yet fully recovered from a string of strong earthquakes that hit the
region starting in late 2019.
More than
100 people had sought shelter across the island by Saturday night, the majority
of them in the southern coastal city of Guayanilla.
Anxiety ran
high across the island with Fiona due just two days before the anniversary of
Hurricane Maria, a devastating Category 4 storm that hit on Sept. 20, 2017,
destroying the island’s power grid and causing nearly 3,000 deaths.
“I think all of us Puerto Ricans who lived
through Maria have that post-traumatic stress of, ‘What is going to happen, how
long is it going to last and what needs might we face?’” said Danny Hernández,
who works in the capital of San Juan but planned to weather the storm with his parents
and family in the western town of Mayaguez.
He said the
atmosphere was gloomy at the supermarket as he and others stocked up before the
storm hit.
“After
Maria, we all experienced scarcity to some extent,” he said.
Many Puerto
Ricans also were concerned about blackouts. Luma, the company that operates
power transmission and distribution, warned of “widespread service
interruptions.” As of Sunday morning more than 128,700 customers were without
power.
Puerto
Rico’s power grid was razed by Hurricane Maria and remains frail, with
reconstruction starting only recently. Outages are a daily occurrence.
Puerto
Rico’s governor, Pedro Pierluisi, said he was ready to declare a state of
emergency if needed and activated the National Guard as the Atlantic hurricane
season’s sixth named storm approached.
“What worries me most is the rain,” said
forecaster Ernesto Morales with the National Weather Service in San Juan.
Fiona was
predicted to drop 12 to 16 inches (30 to 41 centimeters) of rain over eastern
and southern Puerto Rico, with as much as 25 inches (64 centimeters) in
isolated spots.
The National
Weather Service warned late Saturday that the Blanco River in the southeast
coastal town of Naguabo had already surpassed its banks and urged people living
nearby to move immediately.
Fiona was
forecast to swipe the Dominican Republic on Monday and then northern Haiti and
the Turks and Caicos Islands with the threat of heavy rain. It could threaten
the far southern end of the Bahamas on Tuesday.
A hurricane
warning was posted for the Dominican Republic’s eastern coast from Cabo Caucedo
to Cabo Frances Viejo.
Fiona
previously battered the eastern Caribbean, killing one man in the French
territory of Guadeloupe when floods washed his home away, officials said. The
storm also damaged roads, uprooted trees and destroyed at least one bridge.
St. Kitts
and Nevis also reported flooding and downed trees and announced its
international airport would reopen on Sunday afternoon. Dozens of customers
were still without power or water, according to the Caribbean Disaster
Emergency Management Agency.
In the
eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Madeline was forecast to cause heavy rains and
flooding across parts of southwestern Mexico. The storm was centered about 165
miles (265 kilometers) south-southwest of Cabo Corrientes Sunday morning, with
maximum sustained winds of 45 mph (75 kph).