Hurricane Fiona Causes Entire Island of Puerto Rico to Lose Power - PEOPLE

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Puerto Rico is suffering from a total blackout amid the category 1 storm, Hurricane Fiona.

Puerto Rico is dealing with the mass power outage, per PowerOutage.us, which officials are working to restore. The service tracks 1.4 million customers on the island. Gov. Pedro Pierluisi also confirmed the outage on Twitter.

"LUMA and AEE are working to try and reenergize parts of the grid after an island-wide blackout due to Hurricane Fiona," PowerOutage.us reads. "Limited information is available at this time on progress of this reenergize process."

Hurricane Fiona is creating sustained winds of 85 mph, per numbers from the National Hurricane Center's update at 2 p.m., which were highlighted by CNN. At least one death has been reported in Basse-Terre following flooding, according to Sylvie Gustave Dit Duflo, vice president of PR's environmental agency, and residents are concerned over the threat of flooding and mudslides.

"These rains will produce life-threatening flash flooding and urban flooding across Puerto Rico and the eastern Dominican Republic, along with mudslides and landslides in areas of higher terrain," the hurricane center shared.

Pierluisi revealed in a Sunday news conference that winds and rain bands could reach 100 to 120 mph and warned that it "will cover our entire island."

The National Weather Service has issued flash flood warnings for south and east Puerto Rico through Sunday mid-afternoon, with the hurricane center reporting that those areas could potentially see up to 25 inches of rainfall.

"Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours while Fiona moves near Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and over the southwestern Atlantic," the hurricane center said. "Hurricane conditions are expected on Puerto Rico today, and are expected in portions of the eastern Dominican Republic tonight and Monday."

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President Joe Biden has approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico, which frees up resources for disaster relief and emergency response. Now, the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency are able to coordinate disaster relief efforts as well.

The outages come nearly five years after Hurricane Maria, which left Puerto Rico residents without electricity for months starting in September 2017 as it devastated the territory's power grid. The category 4 storm resulted in nearly 3,000 deaths.

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Maria, which created $90 billion in damages, became the most powerful hurricane to hit Puerto Rico since 1932. FEMA's work in Puerto Rico proved to be the longest sustained domestic airborne food and water mission in U.S. history, but the New York Times reported in 2018 that of the more than one million people who requested help, 58 percent were denied.

"We all have some sort of [post traumatic stress disorder]. It's a trauma," San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz Soto told ABC News a year later. "It's not a shock, it's a trauma."

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Hurricane Fiona Causes Entire Island of Puerto Rico to Lose Power - PEOPLE
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