Drone footage showed a bridge submerged by the flooded La Plata river in Tao Baja, Puerto Rico on Wednesday (August 14), after Hurricane Ernesto hit the Caribbean island. About half of all homes and businesses in Puerto Rico were without power on Wednesday as Hurricane Ernesto churned north into the warm waters of the Atlantic after dumping torrential rain on the U.S. territory. More than 725,000 homes and businesses on the island were without electric service out of a total of about 1.5 million customers, according to LUMA Energy, the Caribbean island’s main power supplier.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Ernesto, which strengthened from a tropical storm to a Category 1 hurricane earlier in the day, was about 225 miles (365 km) northwest of the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan as it crawled to the northwest, packing winds of about 75 miles per hour (120 kph), the National Hurricane Center said.
