(MENAFN- Trend News Agency)
Hurricane Fiona strengthened to a powerful Category 4 storm on
Wednesday as it headed toward Bermuda after carving a destructive
path through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where the
storm left most people without power and up to eight dead, Trend reports citing Reuters .
Eric Blake, acting branch chief for the NHC in Miami, said
Bermuda would see high surf, storm surges, heavy rainfall and
powerful winds even if Fiona kept on its current path and passed to
the west of the island. Bermuda will see the worst of the storm by
late Thursday, the NHC said.
'Hopefully, the core of the storm will stay west, but it could
still jog east and hit Bermuda,' Blake said, adding that the U.S.
East Coast would experience large swells and rip currents as the
storm churns toward Canada.
'This will be a big deal up there,' he told Reuters, referring
to Fiona's track toward Canada's Atlantic provinces of Nova Scotia,
and Newfoundland and Labrador.
In Puerto Rico, where 40% of the island's 3.3 million residents
were still without water and three-fourths were lacking power,
authorities were trying to determine the scale of the destruction
and start rebuilding.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday approved a disaster
declaration for Puerto Rico, which makes federal funding available
for individuals affected by the storm, the White House said in a
statement.
Fiona might have caused at least eight deaths, including that of
a sick 4-month-old infant whose mother struggled to get to the
hospital due to blocked roads, Dr. Maria Conte Miller, director of
the Institute of Forensic Sciences, said in at roundtable on
Tuesday. The deaths are under investigation.
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