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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.
