Thousands in Puerto Rico without power, under flood threats as Ernesto turns into hurricane

Puerto Rico remained under a tropical storm watch as Ernesto turned into a Category 1 hurricane late Wednesday morning, leaving hundreds of thousands of power clients without electricity and prompting evacuations due to floods.

More than 700,000 electricity customers in Puerto Rico were without power Wednesday after then-Tropical Storm Ernesto brought heavy rains and high winds that tore down trees on the U.S. territory, officials said.

The storm, which later strengthened to a Category 1 hurricane, did not make direct landfall in Puerto Rico, but it dropped around 10 inches of rain in the region of the town of Barranquitas, the National Weather Service said.

Luma Energy, the private company in charge of power distribution in Puerto Rico, said restoration would focus on things like hospitals and water treatment infrastructure.

No deaths related to the storm have been reported.

Alarms began ringing in the municipality of Toa Baja on Wednesday morning, warning residents who live in the western part of the town to evacuate their homes as incessant rain from Ernesto overflowed the main river there, exposing more families to dangerous floods.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/puerto-rico-ernesto-storm-power-outage-rcna166559

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