the hurricane Fiona made landfall in the Dominican Republic on Monday after crossing the US island of Puerto Rico where it caused extensive damage and deprived residents of electricity.
There are no reports of fatalities, but Puerto Rican leaders have warned that it is too early to take full measure of the situation as heavy rains were still expected on Monday.
Up to 75 centimeters of rain were predicted in southern Puerto Rico and around 30 in the eastern Dominican Republic, where officials asked people to stay at home and closed the beaches.
“It’s important that people understand that it’s not over,” said Ernesto Morales, a National Weather Service meteorologist in San Juan.
Flooding, he added, is at “historic levels”, and hundreds of people have been evacuated or rescued across the island.
“We are seeing catastrophic damage,” Governor Pedro Pierluisi said.
Before dawn on Monday, rescue workers circulated in the flooded streets of the town of Catano, in the north of the island, and used megaphones to ask the victims to evacuate as quickly as possible.
About 1,300 people have spent the night in emergency shelters across the island, officials said.
Brownish water flooded streets and homes, in addition to covering a runway at an airport in southern Puerto Rico.
Fiona also damaged the asphalt of the roads and washed out a bridge in the center of the territory. This bridge, police said, was installed by the National Guard after the 2017 hurricane mariaa category 4 monster.
The storm also ripped roofs off.
Fiona was 55 kilometers southeast of the city of Samana, Dominican Republic, Monday morning and was generating sustained winds of 150 kilometers per hour, according to the United States National Hurricane Center. She was sliding northwest at just under 15 kilometers per hour.
Winds with the strength of a tropical storm were felt 240 kilometers from the eye of the hurricane.
Meteorologists predict that Fiona will return to the Atlantic on Monday afternoon and touch the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday. It could build up to a strong hurricane and approach Bermuda late Thursday or Friday.
Puerto Rico leaders announced on Monday that 100,000 customers had been reconnected on the island of 3.2 million people. The situation could take several days before returning to normal.
Fiona had previously caused one death in Guadeloupe.