Hundreds of people are trapped in emergency shelters across the Caribbean island, with major roads under water and reports of numerous collapsed bridges. Crops have been washed away while flash floods, landslides and fallen trees have blocked roads, swept away vehicles and caused extensive damage to infrastructure. Two-thirds of the island’s nearly 800,000 homes and businesses are without water after Hurricane Fiona caused a total blackout on Sunday and swollen rivers contaminated the filtration system. The storm wreaked havoc in the Dominican Republic until early Monday morning. The lights went out across Puerto Rico shortly after 1 p.m. Sunday, leaving only those households and businesses with rooftop solar or working generators with power. Critically ill patients had to be moved from the island’s main cancer hospital to the capital, San Juan, after the back-up generator failed due to voltage fluctuations – an issue that has led to regular blackouts in the past year. Authorities on Monday confirmed the death of one person, whose name has not been released, after a generator exploded in Arecibo, a small town on the northern coast. Power had been restored to only about 10 percent of customers by Monday morning as anger grew against Luma, the private US-Canadian consortium that took over transmission and distribution in June 2021. “Today we woke up to pain, suffering and the destruction of our homes, the product of the merciless abuse of our Mother Earth,” said Nelson Santos Torres, of Salinas. “Our communities are covered in water and mud. Those responsible for these evils are the merchants of death and the parasitic elite.” A full assessment of damage to power lines won’t be done until the rain and winds subside, but residents are being prepared for several days without power. Fiona triggered painful memories for Puerto Ricans exactly five years after Hurricanes Irma and Maria made landfall two weeks apart and destroyed much of the island’s electricity transmission and distribution infrastructure, leading to the largest blackout in US history. About 3,000 people died as homes, businesses and healthcare facilities were left without power for months. But the power system remained in disarray as Fiona made landfall, despite the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) having approved an unprecedented $16 billion to rebuild the island’s power system and mitigate risks. None has been earmarked for distributed rooftop solar – a decentralized energy alternative that activists and environmental experts argue would be cheaper, cleaner and more sustainable. A man walks down a street flooded by Hurricane Fiona in Cayey, Puerto Rico. Photo: Stephanie Rojas/AP “Rooftop solar would provide life-saving resiliency,” said environmental lawyer and activist Ruth Santiago of Queremos Sol, a grassroots movement to move the island off a central energy grid to rooftop solar. “The government of Puerto Rico and Fema have learned nothing. They are rebuilding the exact same system that is being torn down over and over again. People are scared and traumatized.” Puerto Rico is a tropical archipelago and US territory located about a thousand miles southeast of Miami. The main island is mostly mountains surrounded by narrow coastal plains where most of the 3 million inhabitants live in towns and cities. Over the past two decades, Puerto Rico – along with Haiti and Myanmar – has been among the three regions most affected by extreme weather events such as storms, floods, heat waves and droughts, according to the Germanwatch Climate Risk Index. Storms are getting more intense faster as a result of warmer atmospheric and ocean temperatures, making it harder for communities to prepare and adapt. Much of the existing energy infrastructure – facilities, transmission towers, poles and cables – is located in areas prone to flooding or at risk from sea-level rise, storm surges and tsunamis, as well as high winds and earthquake damage. Fiona, which was upgraded from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane on Sunday morning, is the first major hurricane of the 2022 season. White House Joe Biden declared a federal emergency for Puerto Rico, mobilizing aid and resources to the island that has officially bankrupt. Heavy rainfall and strong winds then began battering the Dominican Republic, and Fiona is expected to strengthen as it moves toward the Turks and Caicos Islands and Bermuda. Fiona’s eye fell on the Dominican Republic near Boca Yuma at about 3.30am. local time, according to meteorologists. It became the first typhoon to directly hit the country since Jeanne left severe damage in the east of the republic in September 2018. The Dominican Republic shares the Caribbean island of Hispanola with Haiti. On its eastern flank, Fiona downed trees, power lines and advertisements in the towns of Punta Cana, La Romana and El Seibo in the early hours of Monday. Aid groups said there were no immediate reports of injuries.
