MEXICO CITY — 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 destruction feared on the earthquake-battered island.
News radio 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 some 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.
At least three people were reported killed by early afternoon Saturday. A woman and a child died in Souvenance, and a 10-year-old girl died in Thomazeau, The Associated Press reported, citing civil defense authorities.
In the Sou Piste camp of quake survivors 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 after wind blew down their shelter.
“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 to government buildings, schools and other temporary shelters, though many people mistrusted the plans and stayed behind in the camps.
American Embassy officials began a damage assessment tour in the early afternoon.
After crossing Haiti, the storm skirted the southeastern coast of Cuba on Saturday, heading toward the Florida Keys. The National Hurricane Center said it was expected to strengthen into a hurricane before hitting the Keys on Sunday.
It was then predicted to slide past the west coast of Florida in time to drench Tampa as the Republican National Convention gets under way there on Monday. By Wednesday it may strike the Florida Panhandle.
Gov. Rick Scott of Florida declared a pre-emptive statewide emergency on Saturday to prepare state agencies, which were already setting up storm shelters.
But the main worry on Saturday was Haiti, which is ill equipped to handle yet another disaster. Its last major brush with a storm, Hurricane Tomas in 2010, left more than 20 dead in flooding.
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.
The storm was expected to produce 8 to 12 inches of rain, with up to 20 inches at higher elevations. Haiti’s extensive deforestation creates a high risk of dangerous mudslides after heavy rainstorms.
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 remained standing, but her tarp roof leaked so badly that there was nowhere 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.”
Lena Dorce, 23, who lives with her 22-year-old brother in Sou Piste, was among the frightened.
“At about midnight, the wind lifted up the whole house,” she said. “The neighbors were complaining because they said our house blew into theirs and would knock it down.”
Denise Esperance, 41, used a thin sleeping bag to cover herself and a neighbor’s child as they walked to the clinic. “I’ve been out of my house since 1 a.m.,” she said. “I couldn’t stand the wind and rain in my house so I ran to the clinic with my four children.”
Lisa Armstrong contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince.
News radio 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 some 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.
At least three people were reported killed by early afternoon Saturday. A woman and a child died in Souvenance, and a 10-year-old girl died in Thomazeau, The Associated Press reported, citing civil defense authorities.
In the Sou Piste camp of quake survivors 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 after wind blew down their shelter.
“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 to government buildings, schools and other temporary shelters, though many people mistrusted the plans and stayed behind in the camps.
American Embassy officials began a damage assessment tour in the early afternoon.
After crossing Haiti, the storm skirted the southeastern coast of Cuba on Saturday, heading toward the Florida Keys. The National Hurricane Center said it was expected to strengthen into a hurricane before hitting the Keys on Sunday.
It was then predicted to slide past the west coast of Florida in time to drench Tampa as the Republican National Convention gets under way there on Monday. By Wednesday it may strike the Florida Panhandle.
Gov. Rick Scott of Florida declared a pre-emptive statewide emergency on Saturday to prepare state agencies, which were already setting up storm shelters.
But the main worry on Saturday was Haiti, which is ill equipped to handle yet another disaster. Its last major brush with a storm, Hurricane Tomas in 2010, left more than 20 dead in flooding.
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.
The storm was expected to produce 8 to 12 inches of rain, with up to 20 inches at higher elevations. Haiti’s extensive deforestation creates a high risk of dangerous mudslides after heavy rainstorms.
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 remained standing, but her tarp roof leaked so badly that there was nowhere 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.”
Lena Dorce, 23, who lives with her 22-year-old brother in Sou Piste, was among the frightened.
“At about midnight, the wind lifted up the whole house,” she said. “The neighbors were complaining because they said our house blew into theirs and would knock it down.”
Denise Esperance, 41, used a thin sleeping bag to cover herself and a neighbor’s child as they walked to the clinic. “I’ve been out of my house since 1 a.m.,” she said. “I couldn’t stand the wind and rain in my house so I ran to the clinic with my four children.”
Lisa Armstrong contributed reporting from Port-au-Prince.