Hurricane Fiona Knocks Out Puerto Rico Electricity

Image Source: Bloomberg

Hurricane Fiona knocked out all electricity on the US island of Puerto Rico, as winds reached 86mph (140km/h).

Though officials said some of the island's power had been restored, the rest will take days to be reconnected, according to the operator of the island's grid, Luma Energy.

The Category 1 storm caused severe flooding and landslides on the island.

President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for the island, allowing authorities to provide disaster relief.

As well as the complete outage of power for the 3.3m people living on the Caribbean island, some health centres running on generators were affected by the outage. But electrical systems in San Juan's medical hospital complex have since been restored, the health secretary said.

Ports have been closed and flights out of the island's main airport have been cancelled.

There have also been several road closures and a highway bridge in Utuado, in the island's central mountainous region, has been washed away by flooding.

Puerto Rico's governor said schools and government agencies would remain closed on Monday. Pedro Pierluisi urged residents to seek shelter as soon as possible.

On the French island of Guadeloupe, one person was killed when his house was swept away by severe flooding.

Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico just five years after Hurricane Maria - the worst in the island's history - caused devastation there.

Three weeks after the disaster, only about 10% of Puerto Ricans had electricity. The national grid still remains fragile, with outages a daily occurrence.

Torrential rains and mudslides are also forecast for the Dominican Republic as the hurricane progresses northwest, with the Turks and Caicos Islands also likely to be affected.

Source: BBC News