With winds blowing up to 185 km / h, “Fiona is the first major hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season” and is expected to strengthen further, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), based in Miami.
Heavy rains were already falling on the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British overseas territory, added the NHC, warning of “dangerous floods”.
In the wake of Fiona, a man died in particular in Guadeloupe, carried away with his house by the waves of a flooded river, another in the Dominican Republic while he was cutting a tree, and one in Puerto Rico who put fuel in a ignited generator.
The hurricane caused “catastrophic” damage in Puerto Rico according to the governor of this American territory, Pedro Pierluisi, and President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency there.
On Tuesday, “localized” rainfall and flooding continued in parts of the Dominican Republic, according to the NHC.
Several roads were flooded or cut by falling trees or electric poles around the resort town of Punta Cana in the eastern Dominican Republic, where the electricity supply was interrupted, according to journalists from AFP.
In Puerto Rico, Fiona caused landslides, downed trees and power lines, made roads impassable and swept away a bridge in the town of Utuado.
More than 800,000 people, according to the authorities, found themselves without drinking water service.
The entire territory of Puerto Rico, which has more than three million inhabitants, had been without electricity as the hurricane approached. Power has so far only been restored for just under 300,000 people, or “more than 19% of the total number of customers”, according to the electricity company LUMA.