An intensifying Hurricane Fiona is bringing heavy rains, excessive winds and energy outages to Puerto Rico. The energy has been knocked out to the complete island.
The newest: The heart of Fiona was heading for the jap Dominican Republic on Sunday night, however heavy rainfall and “catastrophic” flooding continued to pummel a lot Of Puerto Rico, based on a National Hurricane Center tweet.
The large image: The storm is dumping greater than two toes of rain in Puerto Rico, “causing catastrophic” flooding, the National Hurricane Center warns. Hurricane-force winds have taken out the island’s fragile power grid.
- Fiona made landfall close to Punta Tocon, on the island’s southeastern coast, round 3:20 p.m. native time with most sustained winds of 85 mph, per an NHC tweet.
- The storm has seen winds enhance by 15 mph for the reason that NHC up to date on then-Tropical Storm Fiona at 8 a.m. ET.
Zoom in: Fiona is a Category 1 hurricane and is predicted to stay so by landfall in Puerto Rico.
- Ponce, on the southern aspect of the island, has seen sustained winds of 69 mph with a most wind gust of 103 mph, per the Hurricane Center.
- President Biden has declared a federal catastrophe for Puerto Rico, mobilizing the supply of support to the island.
Threat stage: The storm was more likely to deliver torrential rains to Puerto Rico by Monday, with a widespread space of 12 to 18 inches of rain anticipated. Higher quantities will fall in some areas, significantly in larger elevations, the place as much as 30 inches might fall in a brief time period.
- “These rains will produce life-threatening and catastrophic flash flooding and urban flooding across Puerto Rico and the eastern Dominican Republic, along with mudslides and landslides in areas of higher terrain,” the Hurricane Center warned as of two p.m. Sunday.
- Nearly the complete island was underneath a flash flood warning as of 5:00 p.m. ET.
Meanwhile, heavy rains and hurricane-force winds had been anticipated in jap areas of the Dominican Republic on Sunday night time and Monday.
- Puerto Rico’s energy grid, which was severely broken throughout Hurricane Maria in 2017, has faltered, with practically 1.5 million prospects with out energy as of seven p.m. ET, based on Poweroutage.us.
What they’re saying: “The damages that we are seeing are catastrophic,” Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said.
What we’re watching: The take a look at for utility operators now might be how rapidly they will restore energy as soon as the storm passes.
Of notice: NOAA scientists managed to sail a remotely operated “Sail Drone” into the attention of Hurricane Fiona, which helped validate their depth estimate.
- Storm surge flooding of 1 to three toes above usually dry land is predicted alongside the south shore of Puerto Rico on Saturday, supplied the height surge hits at excessive tide.
- The NWS in San Juan was issuing flash flood warnings all through Sunday because the rains trigger rivers and streams to rise. Video from social media exhibits torrents of water washing away bridges, energy strains and different infrastructure in southwestern Puerto Rico.
- The storm beforehand brought on damaging flooding after dumping practically 20 inches of rain on the French island of Guadeloupe late final week.
What’s subsequent: Fiona is predicted to proceed to accentuate as soon as it strikes northwest of Puerto Rico and north of the Dominican Republic. The storm is predicted to show slowly to the north by midweek because it strikes close to or over the Turks and Caicos Islands.
- It’s anticipated that the storm will turn out to be the season’s first “major” Atlantic hurricane of the season, at Category 3 depth or higher by midweek.
- Most laptop fashions now take the storm out to sea nicely east of the mainland U.S., but it surely might be a menace to Bermuda late within the week.
Editor’s notice: This is a breaking information story. Please examine again for updates.
