PORT-AU-PRINCE -- The death toll in Haiti continued to rise Sunday, as authorities struggled to recover form the damage left behind by Tropical Storm Isaac.
Haiti's Office of Civil Protection said at least seven people had been killed, including a young man who died in a landslide in DonDon, in northern Haiti.
The tourist town of Jacmel, in Haiti’s southern peninsula, was particularly hard hit. On Sunday, the town was cut off by rivers and partially collapsed roads. Fallen trees riddled the city even as clean up crews were at work.
Isaac is currently hovering off the northeastern coast of Cuba, generating stiff winds and dangerous storm surges on both coasts of the island, Cuba’s Meteorological Institute reported. Cuba’s state-run Prensa Latina news agency said there were no deaths reported but sporadic damage. The island’s oldest and easternmost town, Baracoa, was hard hit. At least 89 homes were damaged, including four that completely collapsed, the agency said. The eastern province of Tunas also suffered damaged roads. While power and phone lines went down on the island overnight, electricity had been restored to most neighborhoods Sunday, the agency reported.
While the ragged storm system didn’t pack the punch some had feared, it generated havoc across a large swath of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, which is still recovering from a devastating 2010 earthquake.
Among Haiti’s dead was a 10-year-old girl in Thomazeau, a community north of Port-au-Prince. Also, government officials said a 7-year-old boy was electrocuted in the Artibonite Valley in Northwest Haiti, and United Nations police reported that a woman died in Jacmel when a tree fell on her.
The Office of Civil Protection said 14,500 people were evacuated nationwide and 13,000 remained in emergency shelters Sunday.
While the brunt of the storm had passed, there were fears that the rains it was pulling behind it might lead to further flooding in Haiti, where almost 400,000 earthquake victims are still living in temporary shelters. There were also concerns that stagnant flood waters could exacerbate the nation’s ongoing cholera epidemic.
In neighboring Dominican Republic, the storm forced more than 7,700 people to evacuate and damaged more than 250 homes, the Emergency Operation Center reported. As of Saturday afternoon, more than 70 communities were still cut off by the storm. Santo Domingo’s seaside boardwalk was scattered with logs and debris coughed up by the choppy waters, local media reported.
Near the sprawling Haitian shantytown of Cite Soleil, residents waded through knee-high water.
Power remained out in most of the capital Saturday after authorities cut electricity as a precautionary measure.
The southern tourist city of Jacmel also lost power. As crews inspected the power grid, others worked to clear fallen trees, downed power lines and other debris from roads.
But many quake refugees had refused to move, fearing thieves would steal their meager possessions or, worse, the government and aid groups would use it as an opportunity to shut down camps.
“We’ve lived through this before. We’re not afraid,” said Lucien Pierre, 28, a mother of two, as she washed clothes outside her tent. “We’ll pray and watch.”
Isaac made landfall along Haiti’s southern peninsula early Saturday, forcing emergency personnel to work overnight, putting out a church fire in Port-au-Prince and evacuating several refugee camps as howling winds ripped tents and tore away at the corroded zinc walls of shacks.
The flood-prone town of Les Cayes, on the southern peninsula, was largely spared. However, the tourist haven of Jacmel, about 80 miles east of Les Cayes, reported lots of damaged homes and missing roofs.
By Saturday evening, the rain was beginning to ease, but flooding remained a concern.
At Camp Marassa, where bus loads of women and children were relocated to a temporary shelter in the middle of the night, quake evacuees watched in panic as the brown, murky waters of the Grise River threatened to wreak further havoc.
Sloshing through mud to climb a hilly mound, Yonel Felix said he and others had survived the storm, but they weren’t so sure about the floods.
“Who knows what will happen,” he said watching the river’s raging waters rise around his wind damaged tent. “Only God can save us now.”
Posted By: Siebra Muhammad
Sunday, August 26th 2012 at 3:19PM
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