Fiona threatens to become Category 4 storm headed to Bermuda

Hurricane Fiona threatened to strengthen into a Category 4 storm Wednesday as it lashed the Turks and Caicos Islands and was forecast to squeeze past Bermuda later this week.
The storm was blamed for causing at least four direct deaths in its march through the Caribbean, where it unleashed torrential rain in Puerto Rico, leaving a majority without power or water as hundreds of thousands of people scraped mud out of their homes following what authorities described as “horic” flooding.
Power company officials initially said it would take a couple of days for electricity to be fully restored but then appeared to backtrack late Tuesday night.
“Hurricane Fiona has severely impacted electrical infrastructure and generation facilities throughout the island. We want to make it very clear that efforts to restore and reenergise continue and are being affected severe flooding, impassable roads, downed trees, deteriorating equipment, and downed lines,” said Luma, the company that operates power transmission and dribution.
The hum of generators could be heard across the island as people became increasingly exasperated, with some still trying to recover from Hurricane Maria, which hit as a Category 4 storm five years ago, killing an estimated 2,975 people in its aftermath.

Some 80% of homes and businesses in Puerto Rico lacked power as rains from Hurricane Fiona receded, leaving residents complaining that the island’s troubled electrical grid was still a mess before the storm https://t.co/jbKNV4sX9b pic.twitter.com/5hP61nyaCu
— Reuters (@Reuters) September 21, 2022
Luis Noguera, who was helping clear a landslide in the central mountain town of Cayey, said Maria left him without power for a year. “We paid an electrician out of our own pocket to connect us,” he recalled, adding that he doesn’t think the government will be of much help again after Fiona.
Long lines were reported at several gas stations across Puerto Rico, and some pulled off the main highway to collect water from a stream.
“We thought we had a bad experience with Maria, but this was worse,” said Gerardo Rodríguez, who lives in the southern coastal town of Salinas.
Parts of the island had received more than 64 centimetres of rain and more had fallen on Tuesday.
late Tuesday, authorities said they had restored power to nearly 300,000 of the island’s 1.47 million customers, while water service was cut to more than 760,000 customers — two-thirds of the total on the island.

Hurricane Fiona continues to wreak havoc in Caribbean, as it slams into the Turks and Caicos Islands pic.twitter.com/mLQ2KaadRu
— TRT World Now (@TRTWorldNow) September 21, 2022
The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency travelled to Puerto Rico on Tuesday as the agency announced it was sending hundreds of additional personnel to boost local response efforts.
Meanwhile, the US Department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency on the island and deployed a couple of teams to the US territory.
In the Turks and Caicos Islands, officials reported minimal damage and no deaths despite the storm’s eye passing close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday morning. The government had imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas.
“Turks and Caicos had a phenomenal experience over the past 24 hours,” said Deputy Gov. Anya Williams. “It certainly came with its share of challenges.”
Late Tuesday night, Fiona was centred about 155 kilometres north of NORTH CAICOS ISLAND, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 45 kilometres from the centre. It had maximum sustained winds of 205 kph and was moving north at 13 kph, according to the Hurricane Center, which said the storm was likely to strengthen into a Category 4 hurricane as it approaches Bermuda on Friday.
The storm killed a man in the French Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe, another man in Puerto Rico who was swept away a swollen river and two people in the Dominican Republic: one killed a falling tree and the other a falling electric post.