High temperatures, rain and mosquitoes make life unbearable for those still affected by the longest blackout in US history
Alexis Robles has slept a mere three hours a night since Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico on 18 September, causing a total blackout across the Caribbean island.
Robles, 52, a systems analyst in the seaside town of Cabo Rojo in south-west Puerto Rico, has been living without power for 25 days.
Continue reading...The US territory has been frequently battered by hurricanes but is often overlooked by the federal government when it comes to aid
Joe Biden announced on Monday that his administration will allocate $60m in funding for Puerto Rico specifically to help coastal areas become more storm-resilient, as he admitted, following the hit from Hurricane Fiona last month, that the island territory had faced much in the last five years and had not received enough timely assistance.
The US president said the new funding would go toward strengthening flood walls, creating a new flood warning system and other projects.
Continue reading...As Puerto Rico prepares for Joe Biden’s visit this afternoon, a grassroots collective known as Queremos Sol (we want sun) has published an open letter (in Spanish) in the La Perla online daily urging the president to not waste federal taxpayer dollars on rebuilding the storm vulnerable fossil fuel dependent grid.
“As you know, the absence of electricity after Hurricane Maria caused thousands of deaths. Now, two weeks after Hurricane Fiona, several deaths related to the lack of electricity have been documented. To a large extent, these deaths could have been prevented.
Continue reading...Tropical systems often strengthen in warmer areas of Atlantic, but can also intensify elsewhere in certain conditions
Late last week, Canada’s Atlantic coast was hit by Hurricane Fiona, with maximum sustained winds in the region of 90mph (145km/h). Hurricanes rarely maintain such an intensity that far north. Why? Hurricanes are fuelled by high sea surface temperatures (SSTs), and ideally high sea temperatures over a large depth. As you move away from the tropics, SSTs typically reduce.
But hurricanes are not confined to the warmer areas of the Atlantic, such as the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Tropical systems often strengthen in these regions, but can sometimes sustain or even strengthen elsewhere given favourable conditions. Ocean currents can transport warmer water poleward which can produce regions at higher latitudes that have higher SSTs than their surroundings. Tropical systems that track northwards over warmer seas can maintain intensity or even strengthen, such as happened with Hurricane Fiona.
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