MIAMI — Hurricane Fiona knocked out Puerto Rico’s already fragile electrical system on Sunday afternoon, leaving millions without power as authorities ask people to stay indoors because of catastrophic flooding.
The U.S. territory is experiencing an islandwide blackout, private power utility operator LUMA Energy spokesman Hugo Sorrentini told the Miami Herald. He said the hurricane’s powerful winds had caused several interruptions in the grid’s transmission lines, leaving millions without power.
“The current weather conditions are currently extremely dangerous and are hindering our capacity to evaluate the situation,” he said. “We will begin the re-establishment efforts as soon as it is safe.”
Restoring power service for the entire island could take several days, Sorrentini said. The storm could also make some places hard to access, making it difficult to make repairs.
The power company already contacted partners that could help restore power through mutual aid agreements. LUMA’s parent company, Quanta, can deploy 5,000 additional workers, Sorrentini said.
“We have the people, we have the equipment, the tools, and the technology,” he said.
The National Weather Service in San Juan confirmed to the Herald that the storm made landfall at about 3:20 p.m. in the coastal town of Cabo Rojo. Fiona was moving just west of Puerto Rico and heading for the eastern Dominican Republic, the National Hurricane Service said Sunday in its 5 p.m. EDT advisory.
Fiona is pummeling Puerto Rico nearly five years after Hurricane Maria devastated infrastructure and killed thousands of people. It also is the 33rd anniversary of Hurricane Hugo slamming the island.
The island may get 12 to 18 inches of rain with a local maximum of 30, particularly in the south and southeast regions, the NHC said at 5 p.m. Fiona’s sustained winds are 85 mph, and it’s expected to continue strengthening as it moves from very close to Puerto Rico’s southwest coast toward the Dominican Republic. Fiona is forecast to become a Category 2 hurricane in 24 hours or less with 100 mph winds.
“If you are watching us from Puerto Rico, please stay indoors,” NHC acting director Jamie Rhome said in a live transmission before the outage.
The hurricane — moving at nearly 9 mph — will be a two-day event, and many will likely have to stay put until at least Monday night, Ernesto Rodriguez, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in San Juan, said on Sunday afternoon.
“We are expecting significant and even catastrophic flooding in those areas,” Rodriguez said.
Nearly the entire island is under a flash flood warning. Several rivers across are no longer contained within their riverbanks or have been receiving so much rain they could eventually overflow.
In the mountain town of Utuado, which was cut off from the world during Hurricane Maria, the island’s police reported a bridge falling down. A video shared on Facebook by local reporter Zugey Lamela shows the Río Grande de Arecibo bringing the bridge down. The bridge was built to replace one that Hurricane Maria tore down.
Meanwhile, the mayor of the mountain town of Barranquitas said on local radio station WKAQ that a house had collapsed. The house, he added, was unoccupied.
The eye of the storm made landfall in southwest Puerto Rico, which was devastated by a string of earthquakes, including a magnitude 6.4 quake, in early 2020. The quakes destroyed schools, businesses and homes.
Dagnes López, a community leader from the region, moved to the town of Lajas from her home in Barrio Fuig, in the nearby municipality of Guánica, after her home was destroyed during the 2020 earthquakes. During Fiona’s arrival, she said the region has seen a lot of wind and rain already.
She is worried about her former neighborhood because if the nearby river overflows its banks, they will lose access in and out of the community. There are several houses that are still in ruins, including her old home. She said the government responds only to situations when “things get hard,” and doesn’t take preventative steps to address emergencies, such as cleaning up rivers before a storm.
“My house looks like the earthquakes happened yesterday,” she said.
Earlier Sunday, President Joe Biden declared a federal state of emergency for Puerto Rico, freeing up FEMA funds to address the anticipated disaster.
Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi had declared a state of emergency Saturday. At a media session following the 11 a.m. advisory, he declared classes and government work canceled for Monday. Only public essential service workers and first responders must report.
“Everyone must maintain calm, but not underestimate the storm,” he said.
He later acknowledged the massive outage on social media and said the electrical system was currently out of service.
“Both LUMA and PREPA personnel are active and ready to respond to the situation once conditions allow,” said Pierluisi.
There are 125 shelters open with over 1,000 people. All flights in and out of the island are also canceled.
While it’s still too early to tell, Fiona may impact South Florida’s daily weather pattern this week, Robert Garcia, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami, told the Herald on Thursday. The hurricane may also cause rip currents, beach erosion and higher waves.
In Haiti, where days of violent protests and looting have brought the country to a standstill, emergency responders were trying to prepare as best as they could given blocked roads and the ongoing volatile situation.
“This system is going to dump a lot of rain despite the fact that it is veering north and the eye is not aiming at Haiti,” said Jerry Chandler, who heads Haiti’s disaster response agency, the Office of Civil Protection.
Chandler told the Herald that the flood and mudslide-prone country that shared the island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic is expecting rain in the of regional departments of the Northwest, North and the Artibonite Valley.
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(Miami Herald staff reporter Grethel Aguila contributed to this report.)
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