Tropical Storm Ernesto nears hurricane strength as it skirts Puerto Rico, bringing concerns of floods and power outages

Ernesto, the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, was packing maximum sustained winds of 70 mph – just 4 mph short of hurricane strength – as of 2 a.m. Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. Its center was about 40 miles north of San Juan early Wednesday after passing over the Virgin Islands on Tuesday.

Though its center will not pass over Puerto Rico – instead sidestepping to the northeast – the storm is still posed to dump between 8 to 10 inches of rain over the island, likely triggering dangerous flash flooding and mudslides, the hurricane center said. The heaviest rainfall is expected across the southeastern portion of the island.

Ernesto will make its way into open Atlantic waters later Wednesday, but in the meantime its force is still being felt across parts of the Caribbean.

Hurricane watches and tropical storm warnings are in effect for the Virgin Islands and the small Puerto Rican islands of Vieques and Culebra. The entire island of Puerto Rico is also under a tropical storm warning.

Flash flood warnings are in place for Vieques and Culebra until 6:00 a.m. Wednesday as “flooding is ongoing or expected to begin shortly,” the National Weather Service said.

Along Puerto Rico’s eastern coastline, storm surge could raise water levels by as much as 3 feet and life-threatening swells and rip tides that could prove dangerous for anyone in the water.

Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Pierluisi has mobilized the National Guard and urged people to shelter in their homes beginning Tuesday evening. Across the island, public schools are closed and nearly 80 shelters have been opened in anticipation of Ernesto.

Residents have also been warned to brace for widespread power outages as the island’s fragile and outdated electrical grid is still being repaired after it was crippled by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

Power outages are a familiar frustration among Puerto Ricans, many of whom have witnessed painstakingly slow efforts to modernize an electrical grid that remains highly vulnerable to natural disasters.

LUMA Energy, the private company that operates the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico, said it has mobilized crews across the islands to respond to outages. And LUMA’s president, Juan Saca, urged people to report blackouts, noting the utility may not be aware of them all.

“Puerto Rico’s electrical system is not sufficiently modernized to detect power outages,” Saca said Tuesday, the AP reports.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency will be able to aid Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands with immediate storm response, including search and rescue operations and generator supplies, agency spokesperson Jaclyn Rothenberg told CNN.

“The people of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are no strangers to storms,” Rothenburg said. “They know how to prepare, but I know that there also are a lot of travelers – people that are visiting the islands during the summer for fun.”

As power outages are likely, people should have non-perishable food on hand, charge any electronic devices and make a plan to keep medications that need refrigeration cool.

“It’s really important that people aren’t complacent, that they are taking the storm seriously and that they’re preparing for the impact,” Rothenberg said.

Where Ernesto is headed next

Ernesto will begin curving gradually to the north on Wednesday, bringing it away from the Caribbean and into open Atlantic waters, where it is expected to strengthen as it approaches Bermuda by Friday.

Ernesto could be a powerful hurricane by the weekend as it approaches Bermuda. It’s too early to know exactly how close Ernesto will come to Bermuda and how much rain and wind it’ll bring.

How strong Ernesto gets will depend heavily on very warm ocean water and how potent storm-disrupting upper level winds become over the region. It’s possible Ernesto will become a major hurricane – Category 3 strength or greater – late this week.

Ernesto’s track could also still shift depending on a number of factors, including when it is pulled northward. A later turn would mean the storm would impact areas farther west like Hispaniola or the southern Bahamas.

Ernesto will have wide-reaching impacts later this week and this weekend despite a track somewhere over the open Atlantic.

The storm will churn up seas hundreds of miles away and could create dangerous rip currents for the US East Coast, the Bahamas and parts of the Caribbean into early next week.

-CNN