the country s longest serving monarch. announcer: live from cnn center, this is cnn newsroom with rosemary church. it is tuesday, september 20th, 4 a.m. here on the east coast of the united states where we are tracking hurricane fiona as the storm gains strength in the atlantic. fiona is now a category 3 hurricane barrelling closer to the turks and caicos islands after tearing through the dominican republic on monday. heavy rains and strong winds ripped through cities destroying buildings and homes. more than 1 million people are without running water in the dominican republic and officials say it s too soon to know the exact number of power outages. it s only a glimpse of the power of this storm, and that s expected to get even stronger through the weeks. let s turn to our meteorologist pedram javaheri who s keeping a close eye on the storm. all eyes on the storm. it is a major hurricane, category 3. possibly up to a category 4. the turks and caicos, home to 5,000 pe
countless homes have been destroyed and rain just won t let up. it has been catastrophic rain that just won t stop. we ve seen that last tail of the storm linger over the island and continue to dump excessive amounts of rain. the first responders, the local responders, the responders of the government of puerto rico are not able to get out and help those that need it or assess the damage. parts of puerto rico are still recovering from the damage inflicted, of course, by hurricane maria in 2017 and it appears fiona could be even more destructive. pedram javaheri is tracking the storm from the cnn weather center in atlanta. what s the weather update, pedram? reporter: major hurricane, category 3 with 100-mile-an-hour winds. it s not far away from cochran town, capital of turks and caicos. it is passing across the region right now. you ll notice very symmetrical. a wind field that expands 150 miles away from the center where tropical storm forced winds are still going to b
Certainly understandable. at least two people have died in puerto rico as a result of hurricane fiona. the national guard said more than 1,000 people have been rescued from the life threatening flood waters since it made landfall on sunday. even though the hurricane has passed, the rain continues to fall. only 1/3 of the territory has working water services and much of puerto rico is still without power. puerto rico s governor told cnn s anderson cooper that most of the damage has come from the rains. the damage is flooding all over the island. talking about primarily the mountain region of puerto rico but urban areas in the north are being impacted as well because the rivers are discharging towards the north and that s causing flooding. we got a total blackout when the
A category 3 hurricane as it barrels towards turks and caicos. this after the storm hammered puerto rico leaving at least two people dead amid widespread devastation. and a texas sheriff says he plans to investigate whether laws were broken when florida governor ron desantis flew dozens of mexican migrants to martha s vineyard last week. he believes federal laws were broken and they were proomised work in florida and then flown to massachusetts. a judge will hold his first meeting at a new york courthouse in the coming hours. ahead of that the former president s lawyers are signaling they oppose having to immediately disclose information regarding declassification related to those documents found by the fbi. meanwhile, the justice department is proposing a system
Let s turn to our meteorologist pedram javaheri who s keeping a close eye on the storm. all eyes on the storm. it is a major hurricane, category 3. possibly up to a category 4. the turks and caicos, home to 5,000 people in the capitol, feeling the brunt of the storm system that has just been upgraded to a category 3 in the last few hours. the eye wall moving towards the region and the eastern periphery which in its entirety home to 40,000 people really going to feel what the storm system has to offer. we have storm warnings here. any amount of storm surge can cause a significant amount of damage to the coastal communities. enough rainfall for portions of puerto rico and espagniola. it s remaining in place after