Heavy rains continue to pound Puerto Rico, flooding streets and causing 2nd death

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Heavy rains continued to lash Puerto Rico and flash flood warnings persisted across the U.S. territory, submerging streets, stranding families and causing at least one death this weekend, authorities said on Sunday.

A 44-year-old man was killed and a 43-year-old woman hospitalized when a tree fell on their car as they were driving in the northern town of Toa Baja at 8:10 p.m. local time on Saturday, police said the next day, as the fierce rains that have pounded Puerto Rico for two weeks triggered a landslide.

That brings the total death toll from the rains over the past weeks to two, after a man who tried to drive his car through floodwaters was swept away and killed last Monday.

Authorities said Saturday's landslide sent a tree crashing into a highway in Toa Baja, and onto the hood of Febus Padilla's car. The woman in the passenger seat, Yesenia Díaz Pacheco, was in stable condition on Sunday, they said.

At least five municipalities across the island declared a state of emergency. In the the capital of San Juan, Mayor Miguel Romero Lugo visited families who had lost belongings to the flood waters and oversaw the delivery of aid that included mattresses and gas stoves.

In Vega Alta, on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, the town estimated that recent floods had already inflicted $7 million in damages.

In the central town of Cidra, local authorities reported $3 million in damages to roads, infrastructure and drainage systems and said they would tap the first $100,000 disbursement of the governor's emergency reserve funds for expenses related to the rains.

''This has been an odyssey. A daily challenge that continues to grow and shows no signs of stopping,'' said María Vega Pagán, Vega Alta's mayor, appealing to the island's governor for more resources as heavy storm runoff threatened to submerge neighborhoods along the beach. ''The municipality will not be able to afford the damage.''

In Aguas Buenas, a mountain town outside San Juan, the rains that were forecast to continue Sunday flooded streets, opened a sinkhole and cut 26 families off from their homes.

Local authorities said they delivered groceries and non-perishable goods to the hardest-hit neighborhood there, which also was experiencing problems with water service. Officers worked to reroute traffic and close roads that quickly filled with rippling layers of murky brown water Sunday.

''These families are not only isolated, but also face precarious conditions in terms of access to basic drinking water services,'' said Mayor Karina Nieves Serrano.

In the eastern coastal city of Ceiba, water authorities said they were trying to fix a pipeline that had collapsed in a landslide. The broken pipeline led to disruptions in drinking water service and prompted the authorities to deploy trucks to supply stranded areas with water tanks.

''We are facing a critical situation that requires immediate attention," said José D. Sepúlveda Sánchez, a regional director in the Department of Water and Sewage.

Another ruptured water pipe caused problems in Caguas, a town south of San Juan, where operations had also stopped at the town's major water filtration plant, which cleaned the local groundwater of chemicals, toxins and bacteria.

Authorities rushing to clean the town's fresh-water reservoir said they hoped restore service in some 12 hours but asked residents to boil water even afterward.