September 19, 2022 Hurricane Fiona slams Puerto Rico

After pounding Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, Hurricane Fiona has strengthened and is forecast to pass near or to the east of the Turks and Caicos early Tuesday.

Maximum sustained winds are now 105 mph, making Fiona a Category 2 storm, according to the National Hurricane Center. 

The hurricane is steadily strengthening over the warm waters of the Atlantic. 

A hurricane warning is in effect for the Turks and Caicos, a British territory southeast of the Bahamas.

Beyond Turks and Caicos, Fiona is expected to pass near or west of Bermuda on Thursday night as a dangerous Category 3 or 4 hurricane.

The hurricane center noted that Fiona is still producing heavy rainfall and "life-threatening flash flooding" in the eastern portions of the Dominican Republic.

The damage in Puerto Rico is mostly rain-related, Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said Monday.  

“By the time the tail leaves Puerto Rico, we will have gotten roughly 36 inches of rain. That’s a huge amount of rain,” he told CNN’s Anderson Cooper during AC 360. 

Only about 115,000 out of 1.4 million customers currently have power, he said.  

The entire island was in the dark early Monday, PowerOutage.us reported.

Additionally, only about a third of customers are getting water services because filtration plants are being impacted by the river flooding and excess rain, the governor said. 

Pierluisi said he was hopeful that within a “matter of days” power will be restored to most customers, though he said they haven’t been able to inspect many of the power lines due to the lingering impacted of Fiona. 

The Puerto Rico National Guard rescued dozens of people from severe flooding caused by Hurricane Fiona, the agency said in a statement, adding the storm also caused widespread power outages.

The National Guard has more than 450 members on the ground to assist people in need after heavy rains and damaging winds struck the island on Sunday.  

They included 21 elderly, bedridden people who were rescued from an elderly home in Cayey that was threatened by mudslides, the statement said.  

Additionally, 59 people and 13 pets were rescued from a flooded community in Mayagüez.

National Guard personnel also rescued people in Salinas, Toa Baja and Añasco, among other municipalities in Puerto Rico, the statement said.

At least two people died as a result of Hurricane Fiona, a spokesperson for Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi told CNN on Monday.

A 58-year-old man died after being swept away by La Plata River behind his home in Comerío. Another man in his 30s died after attempting to fill his generator with gasoline while it was on, setting it on fire, according to spokesperson Sheila Angleró-Mojica.

As Hurricane Fiona moves away from Puerto Rico, communities there are going to need help in order to recover and rebuild, according to Carmen Yulín Cruz, the former mayor of San Juan. And she laid out the some steps for what she believes should happen next.

The first is the provision of equipment.

She told CNN on Monday that mayors are telling her they need machinery to move mud from mudslides before it sets and becomes "really, really sticky and almost impenetrable."

They will need to clear out this mud in the next few days once it stops raining in order to ensure first responders and aid workers can reach communities safely, Yulín Cruz said.

Also, she said, FEMA needs to adapt to the local conditions, noting that the agency had recently reported that most municipalities don't have the English language skills, which can delay some technical processes when responding to an emergency.

When it comes to rebuilding the infrastructure itself, the former mayor said "we need to start looking for permanent solutions to recurrent problems."

"We also need people power to do all the work that's going to need to be done in the next few days, but I have hope. We are relentless, and we will make it," she added.

Hurricane Fiona is strengthening again as the center of the storm moves away from the northern coast of the Dominican Republic. Maximum sustained winds are up to 100 mph, making it a Category 2 storm.

The tropical storm warning for Puerto Rico has been discontinued as the threat of strong winds has diminished. There is a lingering flood threat as heavy rain from the outer bands continues to impact the island. Additional rainfall of 4 to 8 inches is possible, especially in the heaviest bands, according to the National Hurricane Center's forecast.

The center of Fiona is now located about 130 miles southeast of Grand Turk. On the forecast track, the center of the storm will pass near or to the east of the Turks and Caicos on Tuesday.

“Hurricane conditions are expected in the Turks and Caicos beginning late tonight or early Tuesday,” the hurricane center said.

Beyond tomorrow, Fiona is expected to become a Category 3 or 4 hurricane and pass near or west of Bermuda Thursday night.

President Biden spoke to Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi about the “immediate needs of the people of Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Fiona" on Monday. The President was flying back from Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral during the call, the White House says. 

“President Biden described the surge of Federal support to the island, where more than 300 Federal personnel are already working to assist with response and recovery,” according to a readout of the call, provided by the White House. “In the coming days, as damage assessments are conducted, the President said that number of support personnel will increase substantially.”

Biden also told Pierluisi he would “ensure that the Federal team remains on the job to get it done, especially given that Puerto Rico is still recovering from the damage of Hurricane Maria five years ago this week," the readout said.

Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell will travel to Puerto Rico Tuesday to “meet with State and local officials and impacted citizens and assess urgent needs that the President has directed FEMA to meet,” the White House added. 

As CNN previously reported, rescuers are scrambling to save flooding victims in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona wiped out power to most of the island before crashing into the Dominican Republic.

Hurricanes are enormous heat engines of wind and rain that feed on warm ocean water and moist air — and scientists say the climate crisis is making them more potent.

The proportion of high-intensity hurricanes has increased due to warmer global temperatures, according to a UN climate report released in August. Scientists have also found that the storms are more likely to stall and lead to devastating rainfall and they last longer after making landfall.

“We have good confidence that greenhouse warming increases the maximum wind intensity that tropical cyclones can achieve,” Jim Kossin, senior scientist with the Climate Service, an organization that provides climate risk modeling and analytics to governments and businesses, told CNN.

When hurricanes are stronger and move slower, they dump more rain, meaning more damage and flooding in the areas they pass over.

A 2020 study published in the journal Nature also found storms are moving farther inland than they did five decades ago. Hurricanes, which are fueled by warm ocean water, typically weaken after moving over land, but in recent years they have been raging longer after landfall. The study concludes that warmer sea surface temperatures are leading to a “slower decay” by increasing moisture that a hurricane carries.

For every fraction of a degree the planet warms, according to the UN report, rainfall rates from high-intensity storms will increase, as warmer air can hold more moisture. Earlier this week, what had been Tropical Storm Fred dumped more than 10 inches of rain on western North Carolina, according to the National Weather Service, which pushed the Pigeon River near Canton nine feet above flood stage and killed at least four people.

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Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said during a press conference Monday at least two people have died at shelters on the island. 

Asked if the fatalities were caused by Hurricane Fiona, Pierluisi said they do not know of any traumatic deaths and the two people at the shelters died from natural causes.

“We are confirming these at this time because the institute of forensic sciences has a job to do,” Pierluisi said. “Whatever death, whether it is related directly or indirectly to this event, will be reported. That is what I can say at this time.”

Meanwhile, Pierluisi said there are currently no reports of anyone missing due to the storm.