Dominican authorities authorized Wednesday the reopening of the international airports of Las Americas and La Isabela, both in Santo Domingo, after weather conditions improved following the passage of tropical storm Fred.
“The Civil Aviation Institute (IDAC) consulted with other competent authorities and determined that wind conditions had improved significantly, which authorized the reopening of the airports,” Luis José López, spokesman for Aeropuertos Dominicanos Siglo XXI (Aerodom), the operator of those terminals, told Efe.
The executive affirmed that a flight from Madrid that landed at Punta Cana airport (far east) due to the closure of Las Americas, is already at the latter airport, as is another that was diverted to Cibao, in Santiago (north).
As for La Isabela, Lopez specified that this terminal also reopened its operations, but for private flights.
“The cancelled commercial flights to Puerto Rico, Aruba and Curaçao will resume tomorrow and the day after tomorrow,” said Lopez about that terminal, which also operates as a domestic airport.
The Dominican Republic recorded significant rainfall this Wednesday, as a result of the passage of tropical storm Fred, which entered through the province of San Cristobal (southeast), with maximum sustained winds of 45 kilometers per hour.
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the United States indicated in its bulletin of 14.00 hours (18.00 GMT) that Fred is located 30 kilometers west of Santo Domingo, in Dominican Republic, and 330 kilometers south-southeast of the island of Grand Turco, in the Caribbean.
The system is moving in a west-northwesterly direction with a translation speed of 26 kilometers per hour.
According to NHC projections, after settling this afternoon over the island of Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti), the center of Fred will move near the islands of Turks and Caicos, and will head southeast of the Bahamas on Thursday.
Fred may produce rainfall of up to 6 inches (152 millimeters), with the risk of flash and urban flooding, river flooding and landslides and, in addition, because of wind scourge, the area under alert for Fred may suffer waves, undertow and currents, warned NHC experts.
