SANTO DOMINGO – A deceased person, hundreds of displaced people, thousands of people without electricity, overflowing rivers, the fall of a bridge and the collapse of trees is the panorama left by Hurricane Fiona on Monday after crossing the Dominican Republic.
The consequences of the meteorological phenomenon, now category 2, led the executive power to declare the provinces most affected by the rains and winds associated with the hurricane: La Altagracia, La Romana, El Seibo, Hato Mayor and Monte Plata, all to the east, and María Trinidad Sánchez, Duarte and Samaná, to the northeast.
The Dominican president, Luis Abinader, announced in a press conference on Monday that he will move tomorrow to one of the most damaged areas, La Altagracia, where one of the two operational centers announced on Monday will be installed to address the needs caused by Fiona, the first hurricane. that has affected this Caribbean country for the past eighteen years.
The effects of the hurricane and how to deal with them have led Abinader to have not yet decided whether to go to the UN General Assembly on Tuesday, as announced on Sunday.
“The priority now is the issues here in the Dominican Republic,” the president said in anticipation that if the trip to New York takes place, it will be for “a very short time.”
THE WINDS OF FIONA CAUSE THE DEATH OF THE MAN WHO PRUNES THE TREE
In the municipality of Nagua (northeast of the country), Fiona’s winds, which hit Puerto Rico the day before, caused the death of a 72-year-old man who was trying to prune a tree on his patio when he fell on of him above, according to the director of Civil Defense of that city, Franklyn Taveras, informed EFE.
The Emergency Operations Center (COE) said Monday that 12,485 people have been displaced, while 2,497 homes have been affected.
The agency reported that 709,272 customers are in the dark, while their drinking water supply has been cut off to 1,151,384 people.
“The rains hold two cities in the country incommunicado and we have also received a report that 73 aqueducts are out of service,” COE director Juan Manuel Méndez said at a news conference.
THE CALLA BRIDGE, THE TREES FALL AND THE AIRPORTS CLOSED
The Ministry of Public Works and Communications, on the other hand, denounced the collapse of a bridge to the north near the Duarte highway, the busiest in the country.
Fiona, after entering the Dominican Republic in winds of around 90 mph and higher gusts, caused trees and power lines to fall in the country’s eastern and northeastern provinces.
The international airports Juan Bosch, in Samaná, and La Romana, as well as the national airport of Arroyo Barril, also in Samaná, are still closed.
This local afternoon, Punta Cana international airport, through which the largest number of tourists arrive in the country, reported the landing of the first flight after Fiona’s passage.
But where is he headed after crossing the Caribbean. To see more from Telemundo, visit https://www.nbc.com/networks/telemundo
The National Health Service (SNS) reported that maternity and mother-child hospitals have been hit in La Altagracia. In the first, strong winds knocked down the front fence and in the second the fall of the power lines caused a power outage.
To cope with all these effects, the Executive issued a decree declaring as an emergency the procedures necessary to help the provinces most affected by the hurricane.
In this way, twenty state institutions are empowered to act immediately on issues related to the provision of medicines, food, energy system, water supply and social care in general and education, among other matters.
Authorities predict that the Fiona-related downpours will continue Tuesday in the areas most affected by the hurricane and will maintain alert conditions throughout the territory, including the Dominican capital and its province, where the rains have had minimal impact.
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