Tropical storms Laura and Marco advance through the Caribbean on their way to the United States, where they could become the first simultaneous hurricanes since there is a record in the area , and they have already left some 200,000 people without electricity in Puerto Rico while they have the Mexican coast in yellow alert.
Storm Laura hit the island this Saturday with enough force to also leave 7,600 people without drinking water and cause problems in the Puerto Rican Electric Power Authority (PREPA) network, which continues to recover two years after the onslaught of the hurricane Maria.
Governor Wanda Vázquez indicated that the floods and their effects could be worse than those of Isaías, a hurricane that degraded into a tropical storm before reaching Florida in the first days of August.
Therefore, even though the storm is moving away, "you cannot lower your guard," Gabriel Lojero, of the National Meteorological Service of Puerto Rico, told the local newspaper El Nuevo Día.
Now Laura is heading for the Dominican Republic, and then the storm will hit the central coast of the United States, near Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida.
[ Dos and don'ts during and after a hurricane ]
While the storm Marco, which was this Saturday between Cuba and the coast of Yucatan, Mexico, will probably move towards Louisiana and Texas, according to forecasts.
The passage of Tropical Storm Laura through Guayama, Puerto Rico, on August 22. AFP via Getty Images / AFP via Getty Images
Cuba launched its national plan for natural disasters, and the Mexican meteorological service warned of heavy rains in eight states of the country.
Louisiana has been on alert since Friday night, and Mississippi declared a state of emergency this Saturday, after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that Laura is strengthening with possible winds from up to 50 miles per hour (85 kilometers per hour) and that Marco will have maximum winds of up to 65 mph (100 km / h).
"We are facing not only two potential storms in the next couple of hours, but we are also dealing with COVID-19," said the governor of that state, Tate Reeves, in a press conference.
"These are unprecedented times," added the official.
The last time two tropical storms were together in the Gulf of Mexico was in 1959 and the last time two storms made landfall in the United States in a 24-hour period was in 1933, investigator Phil Klotzbach of the United States told the Associated Press. University of Colorado.
The current hurricane and storm season, which began on June 1, has been historic : never before have so many phenomena grown in strength so soon enough to merit a name.
[This hurricane season will be tougher than normal, according to a scientific forecast]
This year the letters ele and eme, by Laura and Marco, were reached faster than ever.
A home in Guayama, Puerto Rico, left homeless by the passage of Tropical Storm Laura.AFP via Getty Images
The National Hurricane Center predicts that both storms, whether they grow to hurricanes or not, will hit the US coast on Monday.
Although it could be that Laura and Marco are kept far enough apart so that there is no direct interaction, a phenomenon known as the Fujiwhara effect.