August 25, 2012
Tropical Storm Isaac whirled across Haiti on Saturday, delivering strong winds and rain that caused flooding, mudslides and at least a few deaths, according to preliminary reports, but not the kind of widespread destruction feared in the earthquake-battered nation.
Radio news reports and social media users reported streets flooding in the capital, Port-au-Prince; some mudslides in rural areas; downed trees and power lines; and shredded tents that left people miserably soaked in the camps that house about 400,000 survivors of the January 2010 earthquake.
The brunt of the storm slashed through Haiti’s southern peninsula, its 60-mile-an-hour winds blowing the roofs off houses in Jacmel, a tourist resort on the south coast, residents said.
After crossing Haiti, the storm skirted the eastern coast of Cuba late Saturday, heading toward the Florida Keys. No deaths were reported in Cuba. The storm is expected to strengthen and could be a hurricane by the time it reaches the United States later on Sunday. In Tampa on Saturday, Republicans canceled the opening day of their national convention because of the storm, which is predicted to slide past Florida’s western coast.
In Haiti, at least four people were reported killed by early afternoon, including a 10-year-old girl who died in Thomazeau when a wall collapsed, The Associated Press reported, citing the civil defense authorities.
Reports were still trickling in by early evening, and hillsides have been known to give way hours after heavy rains. But spot checks by journalists and aid workers suggested Haiti had avoided a major calamity.
Still, the suffering was evident.
One small earthquake survivors’ camp near Port-au-Prince was obliterated. “There was wind, wind and the whole camp fell down,” Marie Yolande Dorcin, 33, who is four months pregnant, said, shivering, as she and a friend tried to salvage belongings from her collapsed shelter. “Everybody went running to the church, screaming, falling.”
Joselain Joseph, 32, watched as a swollen river carried away trash, branches and even a basketball. It had destroyed a concrete depot where she kept rice, beans and other goods she sells.
“I rely on God now,” she said. “I don’t know what to say or do.”
In the Sou Piste camp in Port-au-Prince, violent winds lacerated lean-tos of wood scraps and tarp. Berta Brutus, 30; Riche Silface, 32; and their two young children were briefly trapped early Saturday when the storm came through.
“We were all on the bed when the wind blew the house down,” Ms. Brutus said. “We started screaming ‘Jesus! Jesus!’ because we thought we could die.”
A neighbor took the two children, but there was no room for Ms. Brutus and Mr. Silface, so they spent the rest of the night under the tarp of their collapsed house.
Local radio reports indicated that 5,000 people had been evacuated in the provinces and more than 3,000 around the capital. They were sent to government buildings, schools and other temporary shelters, though many mistrusted the plans and stayed behind in the camps. American Embassy officials began damage assessment in the afternoon.
Gov. Rick Scott of Florida declared a pre-emptive statewide emergency on Saturday; state agencies were already setting up storm shelters.
The storm also left about 70 rural communities in the Dominican Republic cut off by flooding and mudslides, the United States Agency for International Development said. Some flooding was also reported in Cuba.
In Haiti, the Red Cross sent trucks into camps perched on the hillsides of the capital to broadcast warnings over loudspeakers, said France Hurtubise, a spokeswoman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in Port-au-Prince.
On Friday, 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.”
Lina Millien’s shelter at the Sou Piste camp stayed standing, but her tarp roof leaked so badly that there was no way for her, her husband and their six children to stay dry.
“I put the baby under a table, and we tried to go under the bed, but there was water coming up from the floor,” said Ms. Millien, 35. “In past storms we could stand in the corners where the leaks are not too bad to stay dry, but with this storm there were no corners, there was no escape.”
Some in Sou Piste ran to a nearby health clinic built by Partners in Health, a nongovernmental organization, to take shelter, but Ms. Millien said she was afraid of what would happen if she went outside.
“The wind sounded like a plane landing, and I could hear people everywhere praying loudly and crying,” she said. “I looked outside in the night and saw mothers with their babies screaming and trying to run to the shelter.”
Source: The New York Times
Leave a Reply