Fiona now a hurricane as it bears down on Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico, Sep 19: What began as a tropical storm has strengthened into a hurricane as Fiona barreled towards Puerto Rico, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) declared on Sunday.

"Hurricane Fiona could produce storm surge flooding of 1 to 3 ft (30 to 90 centimeters) above normally dry ground along the eastern and southern coast of Puerto Rico and the islands of Vieques and Culebra," the NHC tweeted.

The upgrade comes as locals braced for severe wind and potentially unprecedented levels of rain.

Forecasters said the conditions were expected to spark landslides and heavy flooding, with up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) possible in some isolated parts of the the US island territory.

'Time to be concerned'

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

Fiona was centered 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Ponce, Puerto Rico, as of Sunday morning. The hurricane had maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kph) and was moving west-northwesterly at 8 mph (13 kph).

Anxiety ran high across Puerto Rico with Fiona due just two days before the anniversary of Hurricane Maria, a Category 4 storm that destroyed parts of the island in 2017, including the island's power grid, with the devastating resulting in 3,000 fatalities. Maria left half of the island's residents without power for at least three months.

Currently, over 3,000 homes still have only a blue tarp as a roof. Infrastructure remains extremely vulnerable while 43.4% of the population live below the poverty line, amounting to some 1.4 million people, according to US government data.

Source: DW