(MENAFN- The Peninsula) Bloomberg
Hurricane Fiona knocked out public power to all 3.1 million residents of Puerto Rico Sunday, as it neared the US territory with 85 mph winds and driving rain.
In a Twitter post, Governor Pedro Pierluisi confirmed that the island's ailing electrical system was completely offline.
'We have activated all of the protocols to deal with this situation,” he wrote.
Luma Energy, which manages the island's troubled power grid, warned that it could take 'several days” to completely restore power to 1.4 million households due to the 'magnitude and reach” of the damage.
Fiona was upgraded to a Category 1 hurricane Sunday morning as the wall of its eye approaches the southern coast of Puerto Rico.
Boats sit secured to mangroves as tropical storm Fiona approaches in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico, September 17, 2022. (REUTERS/Ricardo Arduengo)
As of 2 pm local time, Fiona was hovering 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Ponce, Puerto Rico, packing sustained winds of 85 mph with higher gusts, the National Hurricane Center said.
Fiona is expected to dump 12-16 inches of rain across the island and 4-8 inches across northern and eastern Dominican Republic.
'These rains will produce life-threatening flash flooding and urban flooding across Puerto Rico and the eastern Dominican Republic, along with mudslides and landslides in areas of higher terrain,” the agency said.
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The Biden administration on Sunday approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico, a US territory.
Also on Sunday, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would declare a state of natural disaster in the French overseas territory of Guadeloupe, where Fiona left one person dead. Eastern portions of the Dominican Republic are also under a hurricane warning.
Fiona comes almost five years after a powerful Category 4 hurricane, Maria, slammed into Puerto Rico, leading to nearly 3,000 deaths and billions of dollars in property damage.
The island has some of the most expensive and least reliable energy of any US jurisdiction. After Maria, it took the public power utility almost a year to completely restore service.
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