Water is a top concern for residents like Carlos Vega, whose town of Cayey in the mountains of east-central Puerto Rico faced not only utility outages, but also partially collapsed roads — the effects of massive flooding and more than 2 feet of rain. Parts of Puerto Rico were hit.
“(Without) electricity … We can face this problem, we can deal with this problem. The biggest problem is our water. We can’t live without water,” Vega told CNN on Tuesday.
Fiona also swept parts of the Turks and Caicos Islands with sustained winds of nearly 125 mph on Tuesday, officials said. The islands’ lieutenant governor, Anya Williams, said this caused power outages in many areas, including Grand Turk, South Caicos, Salt Cay, North Caicos and Middle Caicos.
As of Tuesday evening, there were no reports of deaths or serious injuries in the Turks and Caicos Islands, Williams said.
Fiona’s flooding caused severe infrastructure damage especially in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, where the storm crossed on Monday. As of Wednesday morning, more than 1 million utility customers in the Dominican Republic were without water service and more than 349,000 customers were without power, according to the major. General Juan Méndez García, director of the country’s emergency operations center.
The power outage comes as parts of the Caribbean face suffocating heat. The National Weather Service said Wednesday’s heat index — what the air feels when combined with temperature and humidity — is expected to be 105 to 109 degrees in north-central, northwestern and western Puerto Rico.
Storm approaches north, potentially threatening Bermuda and Atlantic Canada
“Fiona is expected to become a hurricane-strength cyclone on Saturday,” the Hurricane Center said.
CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said Wednesday that while the storm is not expected to track near the U.S. East Coast, it could generate 8 to 10-foot onshore waves there over the weekend.
“It’s not a good weekend to go to the shore – time to get out of the water,” Miles said of the East Coast.
‘We can’t take it anymore’
Many in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are still grappling with Fiona’s fallout and may face a prolonged relief and recovery process.
In Nizao, a small city in the southern Dominican Republic, a woman tearfully told CNN affiliate Noticias SIN that Fiona’s wind had destroyed her home.
“Thank God my daughters are safe. I managed to cover them with things and block them with a washing machine,” she told Noticias SIN this week.
Another woman in Nizao, who was clearing dirt from her belongings, told Noticias SIN she was frustrated because floods often damage the area. She said she left all her belongings behind when the floods hit this week.
“We can’t take it anymore. Every year we lose beds, clothes, food, everything,” the second woman told Noticias SIN.
More than 610 homes in the Dominican Republic were destroyed and some communities were left without assistance due to the storm, said Garcia, director of the Dominican Republic’s Emergency Operations Center.
Restorers face challenges
He said Tuesday that the governor expects power to be restored to “the majority of the population” by late Wednesday, with the exception of the southern part of the island, which has suffered the worst damage.
But restoration crews face challenges: According to Josué Colón, executive director of the Puerto Rico Electricity Authority, many lines thought to have been repaired have been temporarily shut down due to various equipment problems.
Crews may also have problems requiring work to be suspended so that the already damaged grid is not overloaded, a spokesman for electricity provider LUMA Energy said on Wednesday.
“The community there…(has) severely impacted roads, damaged bridges. Water flooded the streets,…the rest of the community (was) inaccessible,” Criswell said on Wednesday. said at a press conference.
“But I also saw a resilient Puerto Rico,” she said. “I met a woman named Anna who made her own home on her driveway to help make a way for the community. As the bridge was washed away, her home became a place to help others with food and water. channel or her community.”
The storm hit Puerto Rico catastrophically, and parts of Puerto Rico are still recovering since Hurricane Maria swept the island in 2017, causing widespread infrastructure damage and home destruction.
Pierluisi said Tuesday that Fiona’s damage was “devastating” and “catastrophic” in the central, southern and southeastern parts of the island.
More than 800 people were housed in dozens of shelters across the island on Wednesday, according to Puerto Rico Housing Secretary William Rodriguez.
More than 1,200 people were placed in dozens of shelters across Puerto Rico on Tuesday, the governor said. According to the governor, some 200 families were trapped in the island’s Barrows district due to the destruction of a bridge.
Emergency crews are grappling with mudslides and flooding conditions that have blocked access to parts of the power grid and hard-hit and remote areas that need supplies, a CNN crew reported.
CNN Puerto Rico’s Leyla Santiagio and CNN’s Robert Shackelford, Jamiel Lynch, Amanda Musa, Chris Boyette, Taylor Ward and Geneva Sands contributed to this report.