The hurricane is gathering pace as it heads towards Bermuda. In Puerto Rico, more than 725,000 homes and businesses were without electricity. Hurricane Ernesto hit Puerto Rico on Wednesday, knocking out power for nearly half of all homes and businesses on the Caribbean island as it threatened to strengthen into a major hurricane en route to Bermuda.
More than 725,000 homes and businesses in the US territory were without electricity from out of a total of around 1.5 million users, according to LUMA Energy, the island's main energy supplier. By early Thursday, the storm was over open water about 675 miles (1,085 kilometers) south-southwest of Bermuda, with maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 kph) and moving northwest at 16 mph (26 kph).
Warnings in place for beaches in US east coast "Hurricane conditions are possible on Bermuda on Saturday," the National Hurricane Center posted on social media. "The risk of life-threatening surf and rip currents is expected to increase along the US East coast beaches this weekend." Regarding the threat to the US east coast, Robbie Berg, warning coordination meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center, said: "Anybody who goes to the beach, even if the weather is beautiful and nice, it could be dangerous, with those rip currents.
" Meanwhile, tropical storm warnings were discontinued for Puerto Rico and its outlying islands of Culebra and Vieques and for the US and British Virgin Islands. "I know it was a long night listening to that wind howl," US Virgin Islands Gov. Albert Bryan Jr.
told reporters. US faces harsh summer tornado, hurricane season To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video Bermuda braces itself A Category 1 hurricane, Ernesto was gradually strengthening and could be deemed a Category 3 hurricane by Friday. "Residents need to prepare now before conditions worsen," Bermuda's National Security Minister Michael Weeks said.
"Now is not the time for complacency." jsi/rm (AP, Reuters).
