Hurricane Fiona: Puerto Rico landfall

CNN
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[Breaking news update at 3:52 p.m. ET]

Hurricane Fiona made landfall along the extreme southwestern coast of Puerto Rico near Punta Tocon at 3:20 p.m. ET with winds of 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.

[Previous story, published at 3:09 p.m. ET]

Power has gone out across all of the US territory of Puerto Rico on Sunday, according to PowerOutage.us, as Hurricane Fiona bears down on the islands, which are already grappling with the threat of flooding and mudslides stemming from the Category 1 storm.

“Puerto Rico is 100% without power due to a transmission grid failure from Hurricane Fiona,” the website said.

Gov. Pedro Pierluisi confirmed the outage in a tweet, noting the entire electric system was out of service and officials have activated the proper protocols to work to restore power.

The blackout – which followed hours of progressively worsening power outages – comes five years after Puerto Rico’s power grid was devastated by Hurricane Maria in September 2017, leaving many residents without electricity for months. But officials have stressed it won’t be like last time: Not long before the lights went out, Abner Gomez, head of public safety and crisis management at LUMA Energy, which operates Puerto Rico’s power grid, said utility authorities plan to repair and restore electricity with the help of local government agencies.

“This is not Maria, this hurricane will not be Maria,” Gomez said.

Fiona has continued to strengthen Sunday and now packs sustained winds of 85 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center’s update at 2 p.m. ET, at which point the storm was about 25 miles southwest of the city of Ponce.

The storm’s impacts have already been felt: At least one death has been reported in Basse-Terre in the French territory of Guadeloupe, according to the vice president of the territory’s environmental agency, who said the capital had been devastated by flooding. And in Puerto Rico, flash flooding has already begun.

Pierluisi warned the storm “will cover our entire island” in a news conference Sunday, noting winds and rain bands from the storm may extend outward up to 100 to 120 miles. “This is impacting us now,” Pierluisi said. “It’s south of Puerto Rico but very close to our coast.”

The hurricane – the third of the 2022 Atlantic Hurricane Season – is bearing down on Puerto Rico, with the eyewall approaching the southern coast, according to the National Weather Service’s office in San Juan. Winds are expected to increase along the immediate coastline, the hurricane center said, while conditions are forecast to deteriorate throughout Sunday afternoon and evening as Fiona moves near or over the southwestern part of Puerto Rico.

There is a possibility Fiona’s center might skirt Puerto Rico, precluding a traditional “landfall.” But regardless, the impacts of the storm remain…