Hurricane Fiona Hits

Latest natural disaster damages land, kills 14 people

Claudia Laos, Staff Reporter

A new hurricane has appeared and is causing destruction wherever it goes. The latest storm system, named “Fiona,” formed on Sep. 15 in the Atlantic Ocean. The storm was upgraded from a tropical storm to a category four hurricane in a matter of days.

Fiona hit Puerto Rico for multiple days, doing major damage to the island. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), in just two days Fiona was able to drop 6-20 inches of rain, which in turn caused the rivers to rise past their river banks and ultimately led to mudslides and flooding. Wind speeds reached up to a maximum of 130 miles per hour on Sep. 19 through Sep. 21. Fiona eventually moved towards the open water, but then quickly hit the Dominican Republic on the same day with winds reaching 90 miles per hour and around 10 inches of rainfall. On Sep. 20, Fiona touched ground in the Turks and Caicos bringing severe rainfalls even though it was then considered a category three hurricane. Authorities are still assessing the material damage of the storm. It then traveled to Bermuda on Sep. 23, causing wind speeds to reach 125 miles per hour and torrential rainfall. Hurricane Fiona has killed 14 people and left millions without power.

Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Bermuda and Turks and Caicos have not yet calculated the damages from Fiona. However, Puerto Rico took the biggest hit, as the country had extreme flooding, major power outages spreading throughout the entire island and rain damage. Governor Pedro Pierluisi has recently requested a major disaster declaration due to the storm’s damage in Puerto Rico’s central and southwest regions.

Fiona is still alive and heading towards Atlantic Canada and Quebec. It will make landfall there as early as Sep. 24. The East Coast of the United States has not been affected, but warnings have been put in place to keep people out of ocean waters due to the water surges which could be eight to 10 feet tall.