Hurricane threat as Tropical Storm Fiona aims at Puerto Rico

HAVANA (AP) — Puerto Ricans braced for severe wind and rain as Tropical Storm Fiona bore down amid expectations it would grow into a hurricane before striking the U.S. territory's southern coast on Sunday.

Forecasters said “historic” levels of rain were expected to produce landslides and heavy flooding, with up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) forecast in isolated areas.

“It's time to take action and be concerned,” said Nino Correa, Puerto Rico's emergency management commissioner.

Fiona was centered 65 miles (105 kilometers) southeast of Ponce, Puerto Rico, early Sunday. It had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 8 mph (13 kph).

The storm was forecast to pummel cities and towns along Puerto Rico's southern coast that have not yet fully recovered from a string of strong earthquakes that hit the region starting in late 2019.

More than 100 people had sought shelter across the island by Saturday night, the majority of them in the southern coastal city of Guayanilla.

Anxiety ran high across the island with Fiona due just two days before the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, a devastating Category 4 storm that hit on Sept. 20, 2017, destroying the island's power grid and causing nearly 3,000 deaths.

“I think all of us Puerto Ricans who lived through Maria have that post-traumatic stress of, 'What is going to happen, how long is it going to last and what needs might we face?'” said Danny Hernández, who works in the capital of San Juan but planned to weather the storm with his parents and family in the western town of Mayaguez.

He said the atmosphere was gloomy at the supermarket as he and others stocked up before the storm hit.

“After Maria, we all experienced scarcity to some extent,” he said.

Many Puerto Ricans also were concerned about blackouts. Luma, the company that operates power transmission and distribution, warned of “widespread service interruptions.” As of Sunday morning more than 128,700 customers were without power.

Puerto Rico's power grid was razed by Hurricane Maria and remains frail, with reconstruction starting only recently. Outages are a daily occurrence.

Puerto Rico's governor, Pedro Pierluisi, said he was ready to declare a state of emergency if needed and activated the National Guard as the Atlantic hurricane season's sixth named storm approached.

Fiona was forecast to swipe the Dominican Republic on Monday and then northern Haiti and the Turks and Caicos Islands with the threat of heavy rain. It could threaten the far southern end of the Bahamas on Tuesday.

Fiona previously battered the eastern Caribbean, killing one man in the French territory of Guadeloupe when floods washed his home away, officials said. The storm also damaged roads, uprooted trees and destroyed at least one bridge.

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