Water is a primary concern for residents like Carlos Vega, whose hometown of Cayia in the mountains of east-central Puerto Rico has not only been hit by utility cuts but also partially collapsed roads — the result of massive flooding and more than two feet of rain. Parts of Puerto Rico were bombed.
“(Being without) electricity… We can cope with that and we can deal with that. The biggest concern is our water. We can’t live without water,” Vega told CNN on Tuesday.
Officials said Fiona also hit parts of the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday with winds of up to 125 mph. That left many areas without power, including Grand Turk, South Caicos, Salt Cay, North Caicos and Central Caicos, said Anya Williams, the islands’ deputy governor.
Williams said no deaths or serious injuries were reported in Turks and Caicos as of Tuesday evening.
Fiona’s floods in particular left severe damage to infrastructure in Puerto Rico and then the Dominican Republic, which was crossed by the storm on Monday. More than one million utility customers in the Dominican Republic had no water service as of Wednesday morning, and more than 349,000 customers were without power, according to Major General Juan Méndez Garcia, director of the country’s emergency operations center.
The blackout comes as parts of the Caribbean face stifling heat. The National Weather Service said heat indicators – what the air feels when the temperature and humidity are combined – of 105 to 109 degrees are forecast Wednesday in north-central, northwest and western parts of Puerto Rico.
The storm is pressing north and could threaten Bermuda and Atlantic Canada
“Fiona is expected to be hurricane-force through Saturday,” the Hurricane Center said.
Although the storm is not expected to track near the east coast of the United States, it could generate 8 to 10 feet of land waves there over the weekend, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers said Wednesday.
“It’s not a good weekend to go to the beach and get in the water — it’s time to stay out of the water,” Myers said of the East Coast.
“We can’t take it any longer.”
Many in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are still grappling with the effects of Fiona and likely to face a protracted relief and recovery process.
In Nizao, a small town in the southern Dominican Republic, a woman crying tears told CNN affiliate Noticias SIN that Fiona’s winds had destroyed her home.
“Thank God my girls are fine. I was able to cover them with something and prevent them from using the washing machine,” she told Noticias SIN this week.
Another woman in Nizau who was removing mud from her property told Noticias SIN that she was frustrated that floods often damage the area. She said she left all her belongings behind this week when the floodwaters crept in.
“We can’t take it any longer,” the second woman told Noticias SIN. “Every year we lose our bed, our clothes, our food, everything.”
More than 610 homes in the Dominican Republic have been destroyed, and aid to some communities has been cut off by the storm, Garcia, director of the country’s Emergency Operations Center, said.
Restoration teams face challenges
The governor expected a “significant portion of the population” to return to power late Wednesday, with the exception of the island’s southern region, which has been hit the hardest, he said on Tuesday.
But restoration crews faced challenges: Several lines that were believed to have been repaired were temporarily down due to various equipment problems, according to Jose Colon, executive director of the Puerto Rican Electric Power Authority.
A spokesman for the energy provider, LUMA Energy, said Wednesday that crews may also encounter issues that require a pause in work so that the already down grid is not loaded.
“The community there…(had) been badly damaged by the roads, the bridges had been damaged. The streets were flooded, and…other parts of the community were not accessible,” Cresswell said during a news conference on Wednesday.
“But I also saw Puerto Rico resilient,” she said. “I met a woman named Anna, who opened her house into her own driveway to help create a path for the community. With the bridge that was washed away, her home became that path to help provide food and water for the rest of her community.”
The storm is a disastrous blow to Puerto Rico, which was still recovering in some areas when Hurricane Maria swept through the island in 2017, causing widespread damage to infrastructure and destroying homes.
Pierluisi said on Tuesday the damage caused by Fiona was “devastating” and “catastrophic” in the center of the island and the south and southeast regions.
Across the island, more than 800 people were housed in dozens of shelters on Wednesday, according to Puerto Rico’s Minister of Housing, William Rodriguez.
Leila Santiago of CNN Puerto Rico, Robert Shackleford of CNN, Jamil Lynch, Amanda Moses, Chris Boyett, Taylor Ward and Geneva Sands contributed to this report.
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