The storm Fiona was expected to make landfall in Nova Scotia Saturday, bringing hurricane-force winds in what will be a historic and extreme weather event, forecasters said.
Fiona, which was a Category 4 hurricane but is now a post-tropical cyclone, was forecast to make landfall “in the next hour or two,” the National Hurricane Center in the U.S. said around 3 a.m. local time.
The storm had maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, and hurricane-force winds were spreading across the eastern part of the Canadian province, it said.
Heavy rainfall and high winds have been impacting Nova Scotia, Canada’s Hurricane Centre has said, with wind gusts of around 50 to 70 mph.
Landfall was expected near the community of Canso on eastern Nova Scotia early Saturday, it has said.
“It is going to be certainly a historic extreme event for Eastern Canada,” said Bob Robichaud, warning preparedness meteorologist with the Canadian Hurricane Centre, at a briefing Friday.
Evacuation centers were opened in Halifax, Nova Scotia’s largest city, more than 800 utility workers were in place across the province, and officials in nearby Prince Edward Island warned of a potentially historic storm surge as high as 8 feet.
Fiona approached Bermuda on Friday as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm weakened to a Category 3 and lashed the island with heavy rain and gusts of 100 mph as it passed, officials said. No deaths were reported there.
The storm had previously caused major destruction in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It made landfall as a Category 1 storm.
In Canada, officials warned of possible prolonged power outages and have urged residents to be prepared.
Hurricane warnings stretched from Nova Scotia from Hubbards, which is west of Halifax, to the east, according to the National Hurricane Center in the United States.
Prince Edward Island, Isle-de-la-Madeleine, and western Newfoundland and Labrador were also under hurricane warnings, the U.S. agency said. Tropical storm warnings covered other areas.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his thoughts were with the people of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and he urged Canadians to be prepared.
“It’s going to be a bad one,” Trudeau said Friday at an appearance with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol. “The federal government, as we always are, will be there with supports and resources as necessary — of course, we hope they won’t be much needed, but we feel they probably will be.”
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police urged people to stay off roads and to avoid unnecessary travel until the storm passed. Emergency officials on Nova Scotia, anticipating outages, warned residents about the lethal dangers of carbon monoxide from generators if used indoors.
In Petit-de-Grat on Cape Breton Island, Jordan David was helping his friend Kyle Boudreau tie down Boudreau’s lobster boat “Bad Influence” in hopes it wouldn’t be lifted and broken by winds.
“All we can do is hope for the best and prepare as best we can. There’s something coming, and just how bad is yet to be determined,” David told The Associated Press.
Puerto Rico saw an island-wide power outage as Fiona approached the island Sunday, and many remained without electricity Friday, five days later.
Eight deaths are suspected of being related to the storm there, officials have said. Two deaths in Dominican Republic, which involved a tree falling on a man and a woman who died in a motorcycle crash, was confirmed related to the storm by emergency officials there.
Canada has been struck by powerful storms that began as hurricanes before, including three years ago.
In 2019, Hurricane Dorian struck Nova Scotia as a strong post-tropical cyclone and knocked out power to 412,000 customers. Damage in Nova Scotia was estimated at almost $102 million, the CBC reported.
In 2003 Canada was hit by Hurricane Juan, a Category 2 storm at landfall that ripped through Nova Scotia. Eight people died in the storm or its aftermath there, according to Canada’s weather service.
That storm caused so much damage that the World Meteorological Organization retired the name Juan from its list of hurricane names, at Canada’s request.
