The eye of the storm passed near Grand Turk, the small island of the British territory’s capital, on Tuesday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to leave flood-prone areas. The storm surge could raise water levels there as much as 5 to 8 feet above normal, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center. By late Tuesday afternoon, the storm’s center was about 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of North Caicos, with hurricane-force winds extending up to 30 miles (45 kilometers) from the center. Prime Minister Washington Misick urged people to stay away. “Storms are unpredictable,” he said in a statement from London, where he was attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. “Therefore, you must take every precaution to ensure your safety.” Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and was moving north-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph), according to the Hurricane Center, which said the storm was likely to strengthen in category 4 hurricane as it approaches Bermuda in Bermuda. Friday. Rain was still lashing parts of Puerto Rico on Tuesday, where the sounds of people scraping, sweeping and spraying their homes and streets echoed through rural areas as historic flood waters began to recede. In the central mountain town of Cayey, where the Plato River burst its banks and the brown torrent of water engulfed cars and homes, overturned drawers, beds and large refrigerators strewn across people’s yards on Tuesday. “Puerto Rico is not prepared for this,” said Mariangy Hernández, a 48-year-old housewife, who said she doubted the government would help her community of about 300 people in the long term, despite ongoing efforts to clear the streets and electricity is restored. “This is only for a few days and later they forget about us.” She and her husband were stuck in line waiting for the National Guard to clear a landslide in their hilly neighborhood. “It’s open; It’s open;” asked a driver, worried that the road might be completely closed. Other drivers asked the National Guard if they could stop by their homes to help cut down trees or clean up clumps of mud and debris. The cleanup efforts came on the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which struck as a Category 4 storm in 2017 and knocked out power for a year in parts of Cayey. Jeannette Soto, a 34-year-old manicurist, was worried it would take too long for crews to restore power because a landslide swept away the neighborhood’s main light fixture. “This is the first time this has happened,” he said of the landslides. “We didn’t think the amount of rain would be this big.” Governor Pedro Pierluisi called for a major disaster declaration on Tuesday and said it would be at least a week before authorities had an estimate of the damage caused by Fiona. He said the damage caused by the rain was “catastrophic”, especially in the central, southern and southeastern parts of the island. “The effects caused by the hurricane were devastating for many people,” he said. The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency traveled to Puerto Rico on Tuesday as the agency announced it was sending hundreds of additional personnel to bolster local response efforts. The major storm continued to dump heavy rain in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, where a 58-year-old man died after police said he was swept away by a river in the central mountain town of Comerio. Another death was linked to a power outage — a 70-year-old man burned to death after trying to fill his generator with gasoline while it was running, officials said. Parts of the island had received more than 25 inches (64 cm) of rain, and more was falling on Tuesday. National Guard Brigadier General. General Narciso Cruz called the floods historic. “There were communities that flooded in the storm that didn’t flood under Maria,” he said, referring to the 2017 hurricane that caused nearly 3,000 deaths. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Cruz said 670 people were rescued in Puerto Rico, including 19 people in a Cay nursing home that was in danger of collapsing. “Rivers burst their banks and covered communities,” he said. Some people were rescued via kayaks and boats, while others were crammed into the huge shovel of an excavator and carried to higher ground. He regrets that some initially refused to leave their homes, adding that he understands why. “It’s human nature,” he said. “But when they saw that their lives were in danger, they agreed to leave.” The blow from Fiona was made more devastating because Puerto Rico has yet to recover from Hurricane Maria, which knocked out the power grid in 2017. Five years later, more than 3,000 homes on the island are still covered in blue tarps. US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Tuesday he will push for the federal government to cover 100 percent of disaster response costs — instead of the usual 75 percent — as part of a disaster emergency declaration. “We need to make sure that this time, Puerto Rico has absolutely everything they need, as soon as possible, for as long as they need it,” he said. Authorities said Tuesday that at least 1,220 people and more than 70 pets remained in shelters across the island. Fiona caused a blackout when it hit the southwestern corner of Puerto Rico on Sunday, the anniversary of Hurricane Hugo, which hit the island in 1989 as a Category 3 storm. By Tuesday morning, authorities said they had restored power to nearly 300,000 of the island’s 1.47 million customers. Puerto Rico’s governor warned it could take days to restore power to everyone. Water service was cut off to more than 760,000 customers – two-thirds of the total on the island – due to cloudy water in filtration plants or lack of power, officials said. Fiona was forecast to weaken before making landfall in eastern Canada over the weekend. It was not expected to threaten the US mainland. In the Dominican Republic, authorities reported two deaths: a 68-year-old man who was struck by a falling tree and an 18-year-old girl who was struck by a falling power pole while riding a motorcycle. The storm forced more than 1,550 people to seek safety in government shelters and left more than 406,500 homes without power. The typhoon left many highways blocked and a tourist pier in the town of Miches was severely damaged by high waves. At least four international airports were closed, officials said. Dominican President Luis Abider said authorities would need several days to assess the storm’s effects. Fiona earlier lashed the eastern Caribbean, killing a man in the French territory of Guadeloupe when floods washed away his home, officials said.
Associated Press reporters Martín Adames in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, and Maricarmen Rivera Sánchez in San Juan, Puerto Rico contributed.
