Hurricane Fiona made landfall in Puerto Rico on Sunday afternoon, causing life-threatening flooding, mudslides, and an island-wide power outage. According to the National Hurricane Center, heavy rains continued across Puerto Rico on Sunday. From Puerto Rico, Fiona moved to the Dominican Republic where it made landfall early this morning. Heavy rains and wind will spread over the area through today with life-threatening flooding expected across both Puerto Rico and the eastern Dominican Republic. Fiona could bring a total of up to 30 inches of rainfall to Puerto Rico and up to 12 inches to eastern and northern Dominican Republic.

On Sunday, President Joe Biden approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico to provide federal assistance to disaster relief efforts.

After moving away from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, Fiona is expected to further strengthen. As a result, hurricane conditions are expected in portions of the Turks Caicos Islands on Tuesday. Tropical storm conditions are expected in the southeastern Bahamas by late Monday or early Tuesday.

Puerto Rico grows many different tropical and exotic fruit varieties, including mango, papaya, guava, and passion fruit. The Dominican Republic grows a wide range of vegetables as well as avocado, pineapple, banana, and mango. In the coming days, FreshPlaza will report about the impact hurricane Fiona has on the production of fresh produce.

Source - https://www.freshplaza.com