Réunion island issued its highest level of threat warning as the French Indian Ocean territory braced for a direct hit by a cyclone packing gusts likely to exceed 200 kilometers per hour (124 miles per hour).
The heart of Tropical Cyclone Garance – with strength the equivalent of a Category 3 Atlantic hurricane – is “very likely” to directly impact the western portion of the mountainous island on Friday morning local time, France’s meteorology agency said.
“On the rest of the island, cyclonic conditions are becoming widespread with gusts of over 150 kph (93 mph) and rapid variations in both direction and strength depending on the sector,” according to Météo-France.
Garance is expected to be the strongest storm to impact the territory of just under 900,000 people since Cyclone Bejisa in January 2014.
Authorities on the island issued a purple cyclone warning, their highest level, as winds are expected across much of the territory, likely knocking down power lines and destroying property.
Rainfall exceeding 200 millimeters (7.8 inches) is also likely to impact much of the island, which could lead to flash flooding.
Réunion lies about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) to the southeast of Mayotte, another French territory off the east coast of Africa, which suffered destruction likened to an atomic bomb after Cyclone Chido ripped through the archipelago in December, flattening entire neighborhoods and killing at least 31 people.
The government of French President Emmanuel Macron came under heavy fire for its handling of the cyclone – the strongest storm to hit the area in more than 90 years.
Macron faced jeers from locals as he visited the poverty-stricken territory in the storm’s aftermath, but told them they should be “happy to be in France, because if it wasn’t France you’d be 10,000 times even more in the s***.”