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By JONATHAN M. KATZ,
Associated Press Writer SAINT-MARC, Haiti - Haitian families scrambled onto rooftops and
screamed for help Tuesday in a city flooded by Tropical Storm Hanna, as
U.N. peacekeepers and rescue convoys tried in vain to reach them.
By Tuesday night, Hanna claimed 21 lives in Haiti, including 12 dead in
the state containing the cutoff city of Gonaives, said Marie Alta
Jean-Baptiste of the country's civil protection office in
Port-au-Prince, the capital. Iris Norsil, 20, managed to flee Gonaives on Haiti's western shore and
told The Associated Press that people there were isolated by muddy
floodwaters as evening fell, seeking refuge on rooftops as wind gusts
drove horizontal sheets of rain. "They are screaming for help," Norsil said as a U.N. aid convoy tried
unsuccessfully to drive into Gonaives, now surrounded by a virtual lake
of floodwaters. A team of AP journalists accompanied the convoy. Another convoy carrying Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis had to
abandon efforts at getting into Gonaives when one of the cars was nearly
swept away, said Julian Frantz, a Haitian police officer who was
providing security for the group. Floodwaters rose rapidly outside Gonaives, where Norsil and scores of
other residents who abandoned the low-lying city shivered violently in
soaked clothing, nervously eying the rushing, debris-clogged waters. "The situation is as bad as it can be," said Vadre Louis, a U.N.
official in Gonaives. "The wind is ripping up trees. Houses are flooded
with water. Cars can't drive on the street. You can't rescue anyone,
wherever they may be." Those who could move clutched mattresses, chairs and other belongings as
they slogged through waist-high floodwaters. Hanna's maximum sustained winds slipped to 65 mph (100 kph), but the
U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said it could regain hurricane
strength and turn toward the east coast of Florida, Georgia or South
Carolina in two to three days. Heavy rain from the storm's outer bands fell relentlessly in Haiti, a
country still recovering from drenchings by Hurricane Gustav and
Tropical Storm Fay in the past two weeks. In all, floods and mudslides
from the three storms have killed more than 100 people as Haiti's
deforested hills melted away in the torrential rains. In Puerto Rico, flooding was blamed for the drowning death of a
Colombian university student in a raging river. The man's Brazilian
friend was missing despite a desperate search in the water. Swirling slowly through the southern Bahamas on Tuesday, Hanna lingered
over the island of Great Inagua for hours, toppling power lines but
otherwise doing little damage. There were reports of heavy winds
stripping shingles from roofs and knocking down trees, but no injuries,
said Chrystal Glinton, a spokeswoman for the Bahamas' National Emergency
Management Agency. "Everyone is alive and well," Glinton said. "The damages have been minimal." The same could not be said for Haiti, a country particularly vulnerable
to devastating floods because of its steep terrain and hills that have
been deforested for agriculture and by peasants who burn trees for charcoal. In the fertile Artibonite Valley, rice fields were flooded and farm
animals huddled on small plots of dry land. In the village of L'Ester,
Wilson Elie, a local official, said rain had overwhelmed his community
and he pleaded for government help. "The people cannot live in water," Elie said. Tropical storm winds extended out 200 miles (320 kilometers) from
Hanna's center. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Ike was cruising westward across the Atlantic
with top winds of 65 mph (100 kph), projected to near the Bahamas by
Sunday as a hurricane. Just behind it was Tropical Storm Josephine, with
top winds of about 50 mph (85 kph), and forecasters said it could near
hurricane force by Wednesday or Thursday. And in the Pacific, Tropical Storm Karina formed south of Mexico's Baja
California Peninsula, on a path leading far out to sea. It weakened to a
tropical depression Tuesday night.
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