Hurricane threatens to strengthen
Hurricane Fiona blasted the Turks and Caicos Islands yesterday as a Category 3 storm after devastating Puerto Rico, where most people remained without electricity or running water and rescuers used heavy equipment to lift survivors to safety.
The storm’s eye passed close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, yesterday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas. Storm surge could raise water levels there by as much as 2.4 metres above normal, according to the US National Hurricane Centre.
Yesterday afternoon, the storm was centred about 80 kilometres north of North Caicos Island, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 45km from the centre.
Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 185kph and was moving north-northwest at 13kph, according to the Hurricane Centre, which said the storm was likely to strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane as it approaches Bermuda tomorrow.
Rain was still lashing parts of Puerto Rico yesterday, where the sounds of people scraping, sweeping and spraying their homes and streets echoed across rural areas as historic floodwaters began to recede.
In the central mountain town of Cayey, where the Plato River burst its banks and the brown torrent of water consumed cars and homes, overturned dressers, beds and large refrigerators lay strewn in people’s yards.
‘‘Puerto Rico is not prepared for this, or for anything,’’ said Mariangy Hernandez, a 48-yearold housewife, who said she doubted the government would help her community of some 300 in the long term, despite ongoing efforts to clear the streets and restore power. ‘‘This is only for a couple of days and later they forget about us.’’
The cleanup efforts occurred on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which hit as a Category 4 storm in 2017 and knocked out power for a year in parts of Cayey.
National Guard Brigadier General Narciso Cruz described the flooding as historic.
‘‘There were communities that flooded in the storm that didn’t flood under Maria,’’ he said, referring to the 2017 hurricane that caused nearly 3000 deaths. ‘‘I’ve never seen anything like this.’’ –