After heavy damage in Puerto Rico, Hurricane Fiona hits the Dominican Republic

Published on: 09/20/2022 – 04:07 Hurricane Fiona arrived on Monday with heavy rains and strong winds in the Dominican Republic, after causing “catastrophic damage” in Puerto Rico. The National Hurricane Center expects it to strengthen to a Category 3 hurricane. It is now heading towards the Turks and Caicos Islands. Hurricane Fiona hit the Dominican Republic Monday (September 19) after causing “catastrophic” flooding and damage in Puerto Rico, its Caribbean neighbor, where it left residents without power and continued to cause heavy rainfall. Dominican Republic, the hurricane killed one person and forced 12,485 people from their homes, General Juan Méndez García, director of the Emergency Operations Center, told the press. trees or electric poles in the vicinity of the seaside resort of Punta Cana, in the east of the Dominican Republic, where the electricity supply was interrupted, according to AFP journalists. Since Monday morning, 789 people were forced to leave their homes to go to “safe areas”, General Juan Méndez García, director of the Emergency Operations Center, told the press. The winds were blowing up to 150 km / h e Fiona is expected to strengthen further “over the next two days” to a Category 3 hurricane on Tuesday (on the Saffir-Simpson scale of up to 5), according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), based in Miami. Fiona is now heading for the Turks and Caicos Islands. who takes care of the beach of Bibijagua in Punta Cana, reporting destroyed businesses. Strong winds also swept through the northern town of Nagua, AFP found. Videos released by the local press showed residents of the eastern coastal town of Higüey in water up to their waists, trying to shelter personal belongings. In Puerto Rico, where the hurricane first passed and where a tropical storm warning remained in effect, “damage to infrastructure (…) and homes have been catastrophic,” Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi told a press conference. Fiona caused landslides, downed trees and power lines, made roads impassable and washed away a bridge in the city of Utuado. A man died “charred” while putting fuel in a lit generator, authorities said. “Unfortunately, we are expecting more rain all over the island today and tomorrow,” the Puerto Rico governor said, urging the population not to venture into the streets. “In many areas, which had never had floods, there was an accumulation of water without precedent”, “more than what we saw during Hurricane Maria”, explained Pedro Pierluisi.State emergencyMore than 800,000 people, according to the authorities, were also left without drinking water service. “We are without electricity and without water,” Elena Santiago, an anesthetist at Aibonito hospital (center), told AFP. Fiona’s passage “was violent,” she explained. “The hospital works thanks to a generator, we only treat emergencies”. The whole territory of Puerto Rico, which has more than three million inhabitants, was deprived of electricity as the approach of the hurricane. By Monday, power had been restored to 100,000 people, according to the governor. US President Joe Biden has declared a state of emergency. He spoke with the island’s governor on Monday and said the number of federal personnel already working to help the territory and currently at more than 300 would increase “significantly”. Fiona had already caused serious damage during her visit to Guadeloupe on the night of Friday to Saturday. In places, the water had risen more than 1.5 meters. A man had died there, carried away with his house by the waves of a flooded river. Several dozen people in the archipelago had to be rehoused, roads remained impassable and part of the archipelago still had no drinking water two days after the passage of storm Fiona, we learned on Monday from concordant sources. With AFP