Hurricane Fiona Approaches Dominican Republic As More Than A Million People In Puerto Rico Remain Without Power

  Hurricane Fiona made landfall in the Dominican Republic early Monday after battering Puerto Rico with heavy rains, life-threatening flooding and power outages across the island.   

  The Category 1 storm made landfall near Boca de Yuma at 3:30 a.m.  with maximum sustained winds of 90 mph, the National Hurricane Center said.   

  As the storm slowly moves northwest, it is still dumping torrential rain on Puerto Rico, where more than 1.4 million people are without power.   

  So far, at least one death has been reported in the badly damaged city of Basse-Terre, the capital of the French territory of Guadeloupe, the vice president of the region’s environmental agency said on Sunday.   

  The hurricane made landfall on Puerto Rico’s southwest coast Sunday afternoon, lashing the island with strong winds of up to 75 mph and bringing 6-24 inches of rain to some areas by the end of the day, according to the National Weather Service.   

  Fiona will continue to batter Puerto Rico and eastern parts of the Dominican Republic through Monday.  Eastern areas of the Dominican Republic may also see flooding, as well as mudslides and landslides at higher elevations, according to the hurricane center.  Fiona could bring rainfall totals of up to 30 inches to Puerto Rico and up to 12 inches to the eastern and northern Dominican Republic.   

  The hurricane is forecast to strengthen once it passes over the Dominican Republic and is expected to move toward the Turks and Caicos and Bahamas on Monday and Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.  The Turks and Caicos are under a hurricane warning and the southern Bahamas are under a tropical storm watch.   

  LUMA Energy, Puerto Rico’s main electricity utility, said in a statement Sunday that it could be days before power is restored, adding that “several transmission line outages” were contributing to the power outage.  The process will be done “gradually,” Governor Pedro Pierluisi said in a Facebook post.   

  The website PowerOutage.us reported that the entire island was without power early Monday morning, adding that LUMA had “restored power to some circuits, however there is limited information and no numbers on how many customers have been restored.”   

  Power outages have become a familiar crisis for many living in Puerto Rico.  Just five months ago, residents experienced another island-wide blackout after a fire broke out at a power plant.   

  Some parts of the island still bear the scars of Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico almost exactly five years ago.  After Hurricane Maria caused catastrophic damage to the area’s infrastructure, it took nearly a year to restore power to the entire island.   

  Samuel Rivera and his mother Lourdes Rodriguez lived without power for about a year after Maria hit, Rivera told CNN’s Layla Santiago.  On Sunday morning, they once again lost power, sparking similar fears as they had five years ago.   

  They also said they were worried a nearby river might overflow and trees surrounding their home could be cut down by the strong winds.   

  As Hurricane Fiona made landfall on Sunday, most of Puerto Rico was under a flash flood warning in anticipation of the crushing downpour.  The National Weather Service in San Juan warned of “catastrophic” and life-threatening flood conditions.   

  A video of the dangerous flood shows the rushing waters easily sweeping away a bridge, carrying its structure downstream.  Another shot by Samuel De Jesús depicts a scene in the city of Arecibo as rain falls in sheets, adding to the fast-moving waters that sweep past large construction vehicles and whole trees.   

  Many rivers on the east side of the island were in moderate to high flood Sunday afternoon, including a southeast river that rose more than 12 feet in less than 7 hours.  Sunday night, the National Weather Service also issued flood warnings for southern parts of central Puerto Rico.   

  In response to the danger facing Puerto Rico, President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration early Sunday to provide federal aid to disaster relief efforts.   

  More than 300 FEMA emergency workers were on the ground to respond to the crisis, the agency’s deputy administrator for response and recovery, Anne Bink, told CNN.   

  “Our hearts go out to the residents who are going through another devastating event five years later,” Bink said, nodding to the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria.  This time, he said, FEMA plans to apply lessons learned from the 2017 crisis.   

  “We were much more prepared.  We have four warehouses now strategically located across the island, containing merchandise, exponentially larger supplies than in the past,” he said.   

  “We’re proactively there – and well in advance of any storm – to make sure we coordinate.  And all the planning efforts we undertake on these blue-sky days can be realized when the rain comes down.”