Hurricane Fiona is still dropping rain on Puerto Rico as it moves toward the Dominican Republic, as seen in this Sept. 19, 2022 satellite imagery. [Image courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration]
Power crews are restoring electricity in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Fiona struck with heavy rains and winds five years after Hurricane Maria made landfall.
Many large medtech companies have manufacturing operations in the U.S. island territory.
Medtronic (NYSE: MDT) has not received any reports of significant damage to its five facilities in Puerto Rico and planned to restart operations today if employees are safe and can report to work, the company told Medical Design & Outsourcing. The company also has a manufacturing facility in the Dominican Republic.
“Given the path of Hurricane Fiona, our teams have been monitoring and are continuing to monitor both Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic,” the company said. “The safety of our employees and their families is our primary concern. At this time, we are working to gather information regarding employee impacts. … All Puerto Rico sites are currently operating on generator power and capable of full operations.”
Medtronic said it has approximately 7,100 employees in Puerto Rico and approximately 4,300 employees in the Dominican Republic.
MDO has reached out to other major medical device companies with operations in Puerto Rico for more information about their operations and relief efforts, including Boston Scientific, Johnson & Johnson, Abbott and Edwards Lifesciences. We’ll update this story with more information as it’s available. (If you have information to share, email me at [email protected])
Though Hurricane Fiona is less powerful than the Category 4 Hurricane Maria that devastated Puerto Rico five years ago, the island’s weakened infrastructure — compounded by a swarm of earthquakes since 2019 — left residents and property vulnerable to another storm.
On Monday, the National Hurricane Center reported catastrophic and life-threatening flooding across much of Puerto Rico as the center of the hurricane moved toward the northern coast of the Dominican Republic.
Puerto Rico remains under a tropical storm warning, with rain totals expected to surpass 30 inches for the storm in southern Puerto Rico and 20 inches in northern Puerto Rico. The National Hurricane Center warned or mudslides and landslides through Monday night.
Luma Energy, Puerto Rico’s power company, said its crews have restored electricity to more than 100,000 customers following yesterday’s complete outage across the island.
“We will continue to work non-stop until every customer is restored and the entire grid is reenergized,” LUMA Public Safety Manager, Abner Gómez said in a news release. “While these efforts continue over the coming days, we strongly encourage customers to continue to exercise caution and stay away from any downed powerlines.”
President Joe Biden declared a state of emergency for the U.S. territory on Sunday before Fiona strengthened into a Category 1 hurricane.
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