Hurricane Fiona Intensifies In Caribbean After Ravishing Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico
Hurricane Fiona strengthened into a Category 4 storm early Wednesday (Sept. 21), as it headed toward Bermuda after battering the Turks and Caicos Islands overnight and earlier devastating Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, The Weather Channel reports.
What is now the first category 4 hurricane of the 2022 season made landfall as a category 3 storm at the Turks and Caicos Islands with sustained winds raging at 115 mph, blasting the British territory of 40,000 people, reports USA Today.
Fiona ripped through Puerto Rico on Sunday (Sept. 18) and then slammed into the Dominican Republic, triggering widespread flooding, mudslides and power outages on the islands. The catastrophic storm is blamed for at least three deaths, one the Dominican Republic and two in Puerto Rico.
On Sunday, President Joe Biden declared an emergency for Puerto Rico, authorizing federal assistance for the U.S. territory.
Meanwhile, Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi Gov. and power company LUMA Energy said they expected to restore electricity to a "big part'' of the island by Wednesday, according to USA Today. About 80 percent of Puerto Rico remained without power early Tuesday and water service was cut to more than 837,000 customers.
More than 1 million people in the Dominican Republic didn’t have running water and approximately 700,000 homes and businesses had no electricity.
