Tropical Storm Isaac Lashes Haiti, Still Crippled by Earthquake
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Version 0 of 1. MEXICO CITY — Tropical Storm Isaac unleashed heavy rain over Haiti on Friday, raising the threat of floods and mudslides that could worsen the misery of a nation where hundreds of thousands still remain homeless from the 2010 earthquake. As the storm moved northwest, National Hurricane Center predictions had it passing over Cuba this weekend and re-emerging in the Gulf of Mexico on Monday, sliding past the west coast of Florida in time to deliver rain and thunderstorms on Tampa as the Republican National Convention gets under way on Monday. The storm may gain enough strength in the gulf to become a hurricane on Tuesday and threaten the Florida Panhandle. But for now the main worry is Haiti, which is ill equipped to handle yet another disaster. Its last major postearthquake brush with a storm, Hurricane Tomas in 2010, left more than 20 dead in flooding. Rain and wind began lashing the southern coast of the island in the early morning before a full-on assault Friday night as the center of the storm passed over the island’s southern peninsula. Haiti is a “huge concern,” Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said Friday. The expected rainfall was enough to produce “life-threatening conditions everywhere,” he said. While a direct hit was not expected on the capital, Port-au-Prince, where about 400,000 earthquake survivors still live in camps made up of tents and scraps of wood and sheets, even normal heavy rains have been known to overwhelm rural villages and small towns as deforested hillsides dislodge and turn into torrents of mud. The storm was expected to produce 8 to 12 inches of rain, with up to 20 inches at higher elevations. In Port-au-Prince, Prime Minister Laurent Lamothe appealed for calm and advised Haitians to follow text messages sent out by the Haitian Red Cross with instructions on emergency preparedness and information about the risks of landslides. The Red Cross sent trucks into camps perched on the hillsides of the capital to broadcast additional warnings over speakers, said France Hurtubise, a spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Port-au-Prince. The Haitian government began evacuating 2,000 women, children and elderly people from government-run camps in the capital that were at risk for mudslides, and other residents were asked to seek shelter with friends and relatives. Many people were unwilling to leave their homes in the camps for fear of looting. “We cannot force them to leave,” Ms. Hurtubise said. “We can only make sure that they have the best protection.” |