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Satellite image of Hurricane Fiona after making landfall in southwest Puerto Rico. 

Satellite image of Hurricane Fiona after making landfall in southwest Puerto Rico. Photo: CIRA/RAMMB

Hurricane Fiona continued to dump large amounts of rain on Puerto Rico as it moved away from land early Monday morning, contributing to widespread flooding across the island and leaving millions without power.

The latest: Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said in a news conference Monday that the island’s National Guard had so far rescued over 1,000 people stranded in 25 cities or towns and more than 2,000 people had been housed in shelters.

A spokesperson for the government's emergency management department said during the news conference at least 750,000 customers were without running water as of Monday morning because of the power outages, according to the Washington Post.

Officials said at least one person died from the outage. A 70-year-old man burned to death from trying to refill a running generator, AP reports.

Inland flooding, not high winds, tends to cause the most fatalities.

Flood gauges across the island show rapidly rising waterways. The Rio Guanajibo River near Hormigueros, in western Puerto Rico, for example, saw a record crest of 29.2 feet. At the start of the storm, the river was just 11.54 feet.

This beat the flood seen on the river during Hurricane Maria in 2017.

The hurricane strengthened before making landfall in the Dominican Republic to the south-southwest of Punta Cana on Monday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The hurricane's center was moving off the northern coast of the Dominican Republic as of 11am and was moving northwestward at around 8 miles per hour.

It made landfall as a Category 1 hurricane with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph, which triggered mudslides that damaged highways and forced resorts to close, the New York Times reports.

Authorities also shut down ports and beaches and instructed people to stay indoors, per AP.

Threat level: The National Weather Service said rainbands from Hurricane Fiona are expected to continue moving across Puerto Rico on Monday, bringing even more rain to the island.

Parts of the southern portion of the island could see an additional 4 to 6 inches of rainfall on top of at least 20 inches that's already fallen, while an additional 1 to 4 inches could fall on parts of the north, where 4 to 12 inches have already dropped. 

Rainfall could reach 30 inches, per the NHC.

This amount of rain is enough to produce what the National Weather Service described as "life-threatening and catastrophic flooding along with mudslides and landslides."

NWS in San Juan urged people to "MOVE TO HIGHER GROUND IMMEDIATELY!" at around 8 am, "especially across the southern and western half of Puerto Rico."

By the numbers: More than 1.4 million customers in Puerto Rico were without power as of Monday morning, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks outages in the U.S.

What they're saying: LUMA Energy, the company responsible for power distribution and power transmission in Puerto Rico, said on its website the island's electric system "has experienced several transmission line outages which have contributed to an island-wide power outage."

"The current weather conditions are extremely dangerous and are hampering our ability to fully assess the situation," it continued. "Given the size and scope of the outage, as well as ongoing impacts of Hurricane Fiona, full power restoration could take several days."

Data: National Hurricane Center; Map: Jared Whalen/Axios

What's next: The hurricane is forecast to strengthen as it pulls away from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, with hurricane conditions expected in the Turks and Caicos Islands on Tuesday.

The southeastern portion of the Bahamas could experience tropical storm conditions late Monday or early Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Go deeper: Hurricane Fiona leaves Puerto Rico in the dark

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.

Puerto Rico reeling from Hurricane Fiona as storm pulls away

Hurricane Fiona strengthened before making landfall in the Dominican Republic on Monday morning.

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Three blockbuster storms struck different coasts this weekend, causing widespread damage in Puerto Rico, Alaska and Japan.

The big picture: Each storm either exhibited unusual characteristics in its formation and intensification or in its interaction with built infrastructure.

Their damage offers examples of what we can expect more of in a rapidly warming world.

In Alaska: The most intense storm ever recorded in the Bering Sea during the month of September blasted communities across a 1,000-mile stretch of Alaska's western coastline with hurricane-force winds and record storm surge flooding. 

The villages hit include names familiar to the climate community for being vulnerable to erosion and seeking to move to higher ground, such as Kivalina and Shishmaref.

Severe flooding was also seen in Nome, the endpoint of the Iditarod sled dog race. The flooding there beat any seen since November 1974.

By battering already vulnerable coastal communities, the storm will make them more susceptible to the Bering Sea's notorious winter storms.

In Puerto Rico: Hurricane Fiona struck on Sunday, causing an island-wide blackout that illustrates the country's challenges with repairing its electrical grid in the wake of Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Hardening infrastructure against increasingly potent extreme weather events is a major challenge facing the U.S.

At one point Sunday evening, nearly the entire island was under a flash flood warning, with "catastrophic" flooding underway.

In Japan: Typhoon Nanmadol, the country's fourth-most intense typhoon to make landfall, struck the island of Kyushu on Sunday morning eastern time.

The storm dropped more than two feet of rain in 24 hours on parts of that island, threatening to cause landslides, along with wind and storm surge flooding.

Climate change is enabling hurricanes and typhoons to dump more rainfall and stay stronger further north.

Prior to its landfall, the storm had rapidly intensified — a process with climate change ties and reached Category 4 intensity.

Zoom in: The Alaska storm has the clearest links to climate change from a physical science standpoint, scientists told Axios.

The storm evolved from Typhoon Merbok, which underwent an unusually rapid and explosive transition process over the North Pacific into a storm that feeds off jet stream energy.

Scientists told Axios the storm's formation, transition and impacts have global warming ties.

Tweet about the size of the Alaska storm.

Between the lines: The typhoon formed unusually far to the east, over anomalously warm waters, said Rick Thoman, a climate scientist at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, via email.

It then passed over record warm waters in the North Pacific, which injected more energy.

"This is surely a climate change connection," Thoman said.

Brian Brettschneider, a climate scientist based in Alaska, said such intense, out-of-season storms may become more frequent as climate change progresses.

Scientists have long warned that rapid Arctic warming, with melting permafrost, sea level rise and longer ice-free seasons would imperil Alaska's coastal communities.

Shaktoolik, an Iñupiat community of about 320 people, lost its protective berm, leaving them fully exposed to future storm surge flooding.

"We're pretty heartbroken," the mayor told Alaska Public Media News.

Three massive storms slam U.S. and Japan, each with climate change ties

Of all the storms, the Alaska cyclone was the largest, engulfing the Bering Sea.

Satellite image showing a massive storm over Alaska in Sept. 2022.

Satellite image showing a massive storm over western Alaska. Image: NOAA

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Climate change

An intensifying Hurricane Fiona is bringing heavy rains and high winds to Puerto Rico, knocking out power to the entire island. 

The latest: The eye of Fiona was approaching the coast of the Dominican Republic, near the town of Punta Cana, as heavy rainfall and "catastrophic flooding" continued across much of Puerto Rico, the National Hurricane Center tweeted early Monday. 

A tweet from the National Weather Service stating that all of Puerto Rico is under flash-flood warning except for the northeast region.

Hurricane warnings were in effect for Puerto Rico, the coast of the Dominican Republic from Cabo Caucedo to Cabo, and the Turks and Caicos Islands, according to a National Hurricane Center advisory issued at 2am Monday that estimated Fiona's maximum sustained winds at 85 mph.

There were no immediate reports of fatalities in Puerto Rico, though officials in the U.S. territory said it's too soon to assess damage with heavy rains forecast to continue lashing the Caribbean island through Monday.

The big picture: Fiona made landfall near Punta Tocon, on Puerto Rico's southwestern coast, around 3:20pm local time with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph, per a National Hurricane Center tweet. 

The Category 1 storm was dumping more than 2 feet of rain in Puerto Rico, "causing catastrophic" flooding, the NHC said Sunday. Hurricane-force winds took out the island's fragile power grid.

Ponce, on the southern side of the island, has seen sustained winds of 69 mph with a maximum wind gust of 103 mph, per the Hurricane Center.

President Biden has declared a federal disaster for Puerto Rico, mobilizing the delivery of aid to the island. 

 Data: National Hurricane Center; Map: Jared Whalen/Axios

Threat level: The storm was likely to bring torrential rains and hurricane-force winds to both the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico through Monday, with a widespread area of 12 to 18 inches of rain expected in some places. 

Higher amounts will fall in some locations of Puerto Rico, particularly in higher elevations, where up to 30 inches could fall in a short period of time. 

"These rains will continue to produce life-threatening and catastrophic flash and urban flooding across Puerto Rico and the eastern Dominican Republic, along with mudslides and landslides in areas of higher terrain," the Hurricane Center warned as of 2am Monday.

Meanwhile, Puerto Rico's power grid, which was severely damaged during Hurricane Maria in 2017, has faltered, with nearly 1.5 million customers without power as of 3am ET, according to Poweroutage.us.

The test for utility operators is how quickly they can restore power once the storm passes.

What they're saying: "The damages that we are seeing are catastrophic," Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi said.

Of note: NOAA scientists managed to sail a remotely operated "Sail Drone" into the eye of Hurricane Fiona, which helped validate their intensity estimate.

Storm surge flooding of 3 to 5 feet above normally dry land was expected along Dominican Republic coastal areas and later in the coastal regions of the Turks and Caicos could see water levels raised by 2 to 4 feet.

The NWS in San Juan was issuing flash flood warnings from Sunday through Monday as the rains cause rivers and streams to rise. Video from social media shows torrents of water washing away bridges, power lines and other infrastructure in southwestern Puerto Rico.

The storm previously caused damaging flooding after dumping nearly 20 inches of rain on the French island of Guadeloupe late last week.

What's next: It's expected that Fiona will become the season's first "major" Atlantic hurricane of the season, at Category 3 intensity or greater by midweek. 

Most computer models now take the storm out to sea well east of the mainland U.S., but it could be a threat to Bermuda late in the week. 

Editor's note: This article has been corrected to note that Punta Tocon is on Puerto Rico's southwestern coast, not southeastern. The caption was updated to correct the date to Sept. 18, 2022, not 2002."

Hurricane Fiona brings "catastrophic" flooding, power outages to Puerto Rico

How quickly power is restored will be a key test for utility operators on the island.

Hurricane Fiona captured from satellite as it approaches Puerto Rico.

Hurricane Fiona is captured by satellite as the eye of the Category 1 storm approaches Puerto Rico on Sept. 18. Photo: CIRA/RAMMB

Western Alaska was reeling Monday from the most intense storm ever recorded in the Bering Sea during the month of September brought hurricane force winds and record high storm surge flooding along the coastline.

Threat level: Officials reported Norton Sound communities were still being affected by power outages, flooding and damages to homes, public buildings and roads, while water and sewage were also affected as the typhoon remnants and headed into the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's northwest coast Sunday evening.

A tweet of an image of flooding in Kotlik, Alaska.

Because the storm hit in September, there was no nearshore ice to protect communities in the low-lying western coast from the full wrath of high waves and storm surge flooding. 

Social media images showed entire communities inundated, and in one case, a house stuck under a bridge after it floated downriver in Nome, the endpoint of the Iditarod sled dog race. 

What we're watching: While floodwaters were receding, an official with Alaska's Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Management (DHSEM) told the Washington Post the true extent of damage to property and infrastructure along some 1,000 miles of coastline may not be known for days. 

"Access to these [remote] areas is very difficult," Jeremy Zidek added.

Meanwhile, Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy tweeted that, having declared a state disaster on Saturday to activate recovery funds, his administration was preparing to file for federal disaster assistance on Monday.

The DHSEM said in a statement that damage assessment would begin on Monday, with Alaska Guard members activated and increasing in number throughout the week.

Our thought bubble: The Alaska storm resulted from a rare combination of events that have a climate change tie. It started with Typhoon Merbok, which formed in an unusual spot for this time of year, thanks to warmer than usual waters in parts of the Pacific. 

As the storm moved into northern latitudes, it transitioned into an extratropical cyclone, feeding off jet stream energy, except it also swirled over an area of anomalously warm waters again. 

This added more energy to it. And instead of moving into the Gulf of Alaska, which is typical for this time of year, it surged north, into the Bering Sea. Once there, it became the most intense storm on record in the Bering for September, and one of the strongest ever. 

The big picture: The storm surge and strong winds it generated struck some of the most vulnerable villages in all of Alaska to the state's rapidly warming climate. 

Pounding waves and erosion have already made villages such as Kivalina in need of longer-term plans to potentially relocate. Flooding from this storm caused more damage, knocking out airports on the state's west coast by flooding runways. 

The flooding in Nome was the worst since a storm hit in November 1974. 

Alaska reels from historic storm that caused widespread flooding

Remnants of a typhoon brought the most intense storm ever recorded in the Bering Sea for September.

Photo of house stuck under Snake River bridge in Nome, Alaska.

A submerged house beneath the Snake River bridge in Nome, Alaska. Photo: Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities

The entirety of Puerto Rico lost power Sunday as Hurricane Fiona, a Category 1 storm,  bears down on the island, Gov. Pedro Pierluisi announced.

Driving the news: As of 2pm ET,  PowerOutage.US showed no active electricity for the 1.4 million customers on the island that the service tracks.

Puerto Rico's power grid. Image: PowerOutage.us

What they're saying: "Emergency incidents are being reported as a result of #HurricaneFiona," Pierluisi said in a tweet, which was translated from Spanish to English via Google Translate.

"LUMA Energy and the Electric Power Authority report that due to the effect of the hurricane, the electrical system is currently out of service. The protocols have been activated according to the plans established to deal with this situation. Both LUMA and PREPA personnel are active and ready to respond to the situation once conditions allow."

"Rivers out of their banks are also reported in different regions of Puerto Rico. We emphasize that everyone's safety is the priority right now."

"NMEAD personnel are actively responding to those emergencies in which the lives of citizens are in imminent danger."

"We are coordinating with the NMEAD and other agencies, and we will continue to keep our clients informed," LUMA Energy tweeted Sunday. "Due to the magnitude and scope of the outage, as well as the effects of Hurricane Fiona, full power restoration could take several days."

Details: The island was placed under a hurricane warning Saturday morning.

Hurricane Fiona threatens to dump more than two feet of rain in Puerto Rico, which prompted the National Hurricane Center to issue a warning about "catastrophic" flooding, Axios' Andrew Freedman reports.

Puerto Rico's current blackout followed hours of worsening power outages across the island, including during a briefing from Pierluisi on Sunday about the storm. As he spoke to reporters, the lights went out. 

Storm-force winds extended as far as 140 miles from Fiona’s center as it nears Puerto Rico’s south coast, AP reports.

Context: The blackout comes two days before the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico’s power grid in September 2017 and left residents without electricity for months. 

Hurricane Maria is the deadliest natural disaster for U.S. territory in 100 years, NBC reports.

Zoom out: President Biden approved an emergency declaration in Puerto Rico, authorizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to supplement the response efforts.

Puerto Rico loses power across entire island as Hurricane Fiona nears

The blackout comes two days before the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which devastated Puerto Rico’s power grid in September 2017.

Satellite image of Hurricane Fiona prior to making landfall in southwest Puerto Rico. Photo: CIRA/RAMMB

Monday's energy & environment stories

Puerto Rico reeling from Hurricane Fiona as storm pulls away

Three massive storms slam U.S. and Japan, each with climate change ties

Hurricane Fiona brings "catastrophic" flooding, power outages to Puerto Rico

Alaska reels from historic storm that caused widespread flooding

Puerto Rico loses power across entire island as Hurricane Fiona nears