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At least 478 died in Haiti from Hurricane Matthew

Destroyed houses are seen in a village after Hurricane Matthew passes Corail, Haiti,

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – The number of people killed by Hurricane Matthew in Haiti rose to at least 478 people on Friday, as information trickled in from remote areas previously cut off by the storm, officials said.

With the numbers rising quickly, different government agencies and committees differed on the total death toll. A Reuters tally of deaths reported by civil protection officials at a local level confirmed 478 had died.

Haiti’s central civil protection agency, which takes longer to collate numbers, said 271 people died because of the storm. Some 61,500 remain in shelters, the agency said.

(Reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva)

Hurricane Matthew batters Florida as Haiti death toll rises

Rain falls and winds caused by storm are seen while Hurricane Matthew approaches in Melbourne, Florida,

By Scott Malone and Gabriel Stargardter

ORLANDO, Fla./MIAMI, Oct 7 (Reuters) – The first major hurricane threatening a direct hit on the United States in more than 10 years lashed Florida on Friday with heavy rains and winds after killing at least 339 people in Haiti on its destructive march north through the Caribbean.

Hurricane Matthew packed gusts of 100 miles per hour (160 kph) as it tracked north-northwest along Florida’s east coast, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. The storm’s eye was 25 miles (40 km) east of Cape Canaveral, home to the  nation’s chief space launch site.

“We are seriously ground zero here in Cape Canaveral — hunkered down, lights flickering, winds are crazy,” said
resident Sandy Wilk on Twitter.

The storm downed power lines and trees and destroyed billboards in Cape Canaveral, reported Jeff Piotrowski, a
40-year-old storm chaser from Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“The winds are ferocious right now,” he said. “It’s fierce.”

NASA and the U.S. Air Force, which operate the Cape Canaveral launch site, took steps to safeguard personnel and
equipment. A team of 116 employees was bunkered down inside Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Control Center to ride out the
hurricane.

“We’ve had some close calls, but as far as I know it’s the first time we’ve had the threat of a direct hit,” NASA spokesman George Diller said by email from the hurricane bunker.

No significant damage or injuries were reported in West Palm Beach and other communities in south Florida where the storm downed trees and power lines earlier in the night, CNN and local
media reported.

About 300,000 Florida households were without power, local media reported. In West Palm Beach, street lights and houses went dark and Interstate 95 was empty as the storm rolled through the community of 100,000 people.

Hurricane Matthew was carrying extremely dangerous winds of  120 mph (195 kph) on Friday, but is expected to gradually weaken during the next 48 hours, the hurricane center said.

Matthew’s winds had dropped on Thursday night and into Friday morning, downgrading it to a Category 3 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity. It could either plow inland or tear along the Atlantic coast through Friday night, the Miami-based center said.

Few storms with winds as powerful as Matthew’s have struck Florida, and the NHC warned of “potentially disastrous impacts.”

The U.S. National Weather Service said the storm could be the most powerful to strike northeast Florida in 118 years.

A dangerous storm surge was expected to reach up to 11 feet (3.35 meters) along the Florida coast, Ed Rappaport, deputy director of the Miami-based NHC, said on CNN.

“What we know is that most of the lives lost in hurricanes is due to storm surge,” he said.

Some 339 people were killed in Haiti, local officials said, and thousands were displaced after the storm flattened homes, uprooted trees and inundated neighborhoods earlier in the week. Four people were killed in the Dominican Republic, which neighbors Haiti.

Damage and potential casualties in the Bahamas were still unclear as the storm passed near the capital, Nassau, on
Thursday and then out over the western end of Grand Bahama Island.

It was too soon to predict where Matthew might do the most damage in the United States, but the NHC’s hurricane warning extended up the Atlantic coast from southern Florida through Georgia and into South Carolina. More than 12 million people in the United States were under hurricane watches and warnings, according to the Weather Channel.

The last major hurricane, classified as a storm bearing sustained winds of more than 110 mph (177 kph), to make landfall on U.S. shores was Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

Jeff Masters, a veteran hurricane expert, said on his Weather Underground website (www.wunderground.com) that Matthew’s wind threat was especially serious at Cape Canaveral, which juts into the Atlantic off central Florida.

“If Matthew does make landfall along the Florida coast, this would be the most likely spot for it. Billions of dollars of facilities and equipment are at risk at Kennedy Space Center and nearby bases, which have never before experienced a major hurricane,” Masters wrote.

‘AS SERIOUS AS IT GETS’

Roads in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina were jammed, and gas stations and food stores ran out of supplies as the storm approached early on Thursday.

Governor Rick Scott warned there could be “catastrophic” damage if Matthew slammed directly into the state and urged some 1.5 million people there to evacuate.

Scott, who activated several thousand National Guard troops to help deal with the storm, warned that millions of people were likely to be left without power.

Florida, Georgia and South Carolina opened shelters for evacuees. As of Thursday morning, more than 3,000 people were being housed in 60 shelters in Florida, Scott said.

Those three states as well as North Carolina declared states of emergency, empowering their governors to mobilize theNational Guard.

President Barack Obama called the governors of the four states on Thursday to discuss preparations for the storm. He declared a state of emergency in Florida and South Carolina, a move that authorized federal agencies to coordinate disaster relief efforts. Late Thursday, Obama declared an emergency in Georgia and ordered federal aid to the state.

“Hurricane Matthew is as serious as it gets. Listen to local officials, prepare, take care of each other,” Obama warned people in the path of the storm in a posting on Twitter.

Hundreds of passenger flights were canceled in south Florida, and cancellations were expected to spread north in
coming days along the storm’s path, airlines including American Airlines, Delta Airlines and United Airlines
said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Nick Carey in Chicago, Harriet McLeod in Charleston, S.C., Doina Chiacu in Washington, Joseph Guyler Delva in Haiti, Irene Klotz and Laila Kearney; Writing by Frances Kerry and Tom Brown; Editing by Catherine Evans)

Death toll rises; Hurricane Matthew blasts Bahamas en route for United States

A man cuts branches off fallen trees in a flooded area by a river after Hurricane Matthew in Les Cayes, Haiti,

By Zach Fagenson and Scott Malone

JUPITER/ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, blasted the Bahamas on Thursday as it headed for the southeastern United States after killing at least 140 people, mostly in Haiti, on its deadly northward march.

Matthew, carrying winds of 140 mph (220 kph), was “relentlessly pounding” the northwestern part of the island chain en route to Florida’s Atlantic coast, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

The hurricane was likely to remain a Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as it approached the United States, where it could either take direct aim at Florida or brush along the state’s coast through Friday night, the center said, warning of “potentially disastrous impacts.”

Hurricane conditions were expected in parts of Florida by later on Thursday.

Some 136 people were killed in Haiti, local officials said, and thousands were displaced after the storm flattened homes, uprooted trees and inundated neighborhoods earlier in the week. Four people were killed in the Dominican Republic, which neighbors Haiti.

As the storm passed about 25 miles (40 km) from the Bahamas capital of Nassau, howling gusts of wind brought down palms and other trees and flipped shingles off the rooftops of many houses. Bahamas Power and Light disconnected much of Nassau as Matthew bore down on the town.

No structural damage was immediately visible, a Reuters witness said, and rain was fairly light.

Local media reports from southern New Providence indicated that the communities of Yamacraw, Coral Harbour and Pinewood were hit hard by floods after a storm surge of some 10 to 15 feet (3 to 4.5 meters). There had been no reports of casualties.

It was too soon to predict where Matthew might do the most of its damage in the United States, but the National Hurricane Center’s hurricane warning extended up the Atlantic coast from southern Florida through Georgia and into South Carolina. More than 12 million people in the United States were under hurricane watches and warnings, according to the Weather Channel.

ROADS FILLED WITH EVACUEES

Roads in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina were jammed, and gas stations and food stores ran out of supplies as the storm approached with high winds, strong storm surges and drenching rain.

Florida Governor Rick Scott warned there could be “catastrophic” damage if Matthew slammed directly into the state and urged some 1.5 million people there to heed evacuation orders.

“If you’re reluctant to evacuate, just think about all the people… already killed,” Scott said at a news conference on Thursday. “Time is running out. This is clearly either going to have a direct hit or come right along the coast, and we’re going to have hurricane-force winds.”

Scott, who activated several thousand National Guard troops to help deal with the storm, warned that millions of people were likely to be left without power.

Florida, Georgia and South Carolina opened shelters for evacuees. As of Thursday morning, more than 3,000 people were being housed in 60 shelters in Florida, Scott said.

Shelves formerly holding water bottles sit empty at a supermarket before the arrival of Hurricane Matthew in South Daytona, Florida, U.S.,

Shelves formerly holding water bottles sit empty at a supermarket before the arrival of Hurricane Matthew in South Daytona, Florida, U.S., October 6, 2016. REUTERS/Phelan Ebenhack

Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina declared states of emergency, empowering their governors to mobilize the National Guard.

President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Florida, the White House said, a move that authorized the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster relief efforts.

Hundreds of passenger flights were canceled in south Florida, and the cancellations were expected to spread north in coming days along the storm’s path, airlines including American Airlines, Delta Air Lines and United Airlines  said. A FedEx spokeswoman also warned of possible disruptions to package services.

Theme parks and other attractions in the central Florida city of Orlando such as Walt Disney World, Universal Studios Florida and SeaWorld were closing on Thursday afternoon and would remain closed through Friday, according to their websites.

Schools were closed across the region.

At about 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), Matthew was 125 miles (205 km) east-southeast of West Palm Beach, the hurricane center said. It was heading northwest at about 14 mph (22 kph) and was expected to continue on this track on Thursday.

The eye, or center, of the storm was forecast to pass close to Freeport, on Grand Bahama, the most industrialized part of Bahamas and home to Buckeye Partners LP’s BORCO oil storage terminal, Statoil’s south Riding Point Terminal as well as pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Grand Bahamas Shipyard, also in Freeport and used by Carnival Corp. for cruise ship repairs, was closed from Monday as the storm approached.

On Tuesday and Wednesday Matthew, the strongest hurricane in the Caribbean since Felix struck Central America in 2007, whipped Cuba and Haiti with 140 mph (225 kph) winds and torrential rain, pummeling towns and destroying livestock, crops and homes.

The last major hurricane, classified as a storm bearing sustained winds of more than 110 mph (177 kph), to hit the United States was Hurricane Wilma in 2005.

‘MIGHT NOT HAVE A HOUSE’

In Florida, fuel stations posted “out of gas” signs after cars waited in long lines to fill up. At a Subco gas station in Orlando, the gas pumps ran dry on Wednesday afternoon.

The shop was a stopping off point for coastal residents seeking shelter inland from the coast. Among them was Jonas Sylvan, 44, of Melbourne, Florida, who planned to hole up in a hotel with his wife, two daughters and dog. “We’re just trying to get away from the coast,” he said. “It’s safer here.”

Bumper-to-bumper traffic extended for more than 10 miles (16 km) on the main highway leading west to Orlando from the coast.

In the central Florida coastal city of Jupiter, people scrambled to make preparations.

“Our house is wood construction, so who knows what will happen,” said Libby Valentine, 75, of Jupiter. “The whole idea is to stay safe and hope you have the grace to deal with the aftermath because you might not have a house.”

Most stores were closed or planning to do so soon. A line of two dozen cars snaked out of a Marathon gas station and tied up traffic on a nearby road. Next door, the windows of a Sabor Latino Supermarket were covered with plywood and a hand-written sign said it closed at noon.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Neil Hartnell in Nassau, Rich McKay in Atlanta, Nick Carey in Chicago, Harriet McLeod in Charleston, S.C., Doina Chiacu in Washington, Joseph Guyler Delva in Haiti and Laila Kearney; Writing by Frances Kerry; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

What are Haiti’s humanitarian needs after Hurricane Matthew?

People wade across a flooded street while Hurricane Matthew passes through Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

By Sebastien Malo

NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Hurricane Matthew, which slammed into Haiti this week, has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the impoverished nation since a devastating earthquake hit six years ago, according to the United Nations.

The storm ripped through Haiti on Tuesday, causing heavy flooding and knocking down houses.

Citing Haitian authorities, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at least 350,000 people needed immediate assistance.

The full impact remained unclear, however, with communications down in many of the worst-affected areas.

Here are what some of the world’s leading aid agencies expect will be humanitarian needs in Haiti in the storm’s wake.

Helene Robin, Handicap International’s head of emergency operations:

“Initial information reaching us is worrying. Many affected people have lost their homes, crops, and livestock. We will have to face a logistical challenge to reach these very remote areas and provide humanitarian assistance which these isolated populations need. We also fear that the floods caused by Hurricane Matthew entail substantial health risks such as the spread of cholera.” Carlos Veloso, World Food Programme’s country director:

“Because of the severity in the south, we expect that certain roads will be closed and we need to repair them immediately. The second big challenge will be the access to populations in the mountains in the south. Normally access here is not easy, and with a hurricane the strength of Matthew it will become more difficult.” Sylvie Savard, country representative in the joint office of the Lutheran World Federation and Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe in Haiti:

“The most affected groups are those most vulnerable living in areas along the coast, in low lying areas or close to steep slopes. Many people, especially in rural areas, live in poorly constructed homes that could not stand up to the winds and rains. People have been evacuated to save their lives, but the storm and the floods will have swept away what little they have.” Jean Claude Fignole, Oxfam’s influence program director in Haiti:

“Our first response will concentrate on saving lives by providing safe water and hygiene kits to avoid the spread of cholera. Right now there are at least 10,000 people displaced from their homes and in need of safe shelter, water and food.” Ravi Tripptrap, Malteser International Americas’ executive director:

“The floods have been particularly damaging in the slum community of Cité Soleil. Sewage canals are overflowing and filling the streets with garbage and human waste; make-shift shanty homes have been washed away. This is where our help is needed.”

(Reporting by Sebastien Malo, Editing by Ellen Wulfhorst. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Fierce and deadly Hurricane Matthew heads to Southeast U.S.

Hurricane Matthew is seen over the Bahamas in this infrared image

JUPITER, Fla. (Reuters) – Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in nearly a decade, slammed into the Bahamas on Thursday and intensified as it barreled toward the southeastern United States after killing at least 39 people, mostly in southern Haiti, on its northward march.

Matthew, which displaced thousands of people in Haiti, smashing homes and inundating neighborhoods, was predicted to strengthen from a Category 3 to 4 storm en route to Florida’s Atlantic coast, making landfall there on Thursday night, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

A view of destroyed houses in Jeremie.

A view of destroyed houses in Jeremie. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

The center extended its hurricane warning area farther north into Georgia and more than 12 million U.S. residents were under hurricane watches and warnings, according to the Weather Channel.

Roads in Florida, Georgia and North and South Carolina were jammed and gas stations and food stores ran out of supplies as the storm approached, carrying with it strong storm surges, heavy rain and sustained winds that accelerated overnight to about 125 miles per hour (205 kph).

The damage could be “catastrophic” if Matthew slammed directly into Florida, Governor Rick Scott warned, urging some 1.5 million people in the state to heed evacuation orders.

“If you’re reluctant to evacuate, just think about all the people who have been killed,” Scott said at a news conference on Thursday. “Time is running out. This is clearly either going to have a direct hit or come right along the coast and we’re going to have hurricane-force winds.”

A storm surge of up to 9 feet (2.7 meters) was expected.

“Do not surf,” Scott said. “Do not go on the beach. This will kill you.”

The four U.S. states in the path of the hurricane, which was 215 miles (346 km) southeast of West Palm Beach at about 8 a.m. EDT (1200 GMT), declared states of emergency, a move empowering their governors to mobilize the National Guard.

It was too soon to predict where in the United States Matthew was likely to do the most damage, the Hurricane Center said.

Downtown Miami is pictured in this aerial photo as clouds begin to form in advance of Hurricane Matthew in Miami, Florida,

Downtown Miami is pictured in this aerial photo as clouds begin to form in advance of Hurricane Matthew in Miami, Florida, U.S. October 5, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Shelters in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina were opened for evacuees. Federal emergency response teams were coordinating with officials in all four states and stockpiling supplies, President Barack Obama said.

Schools and airports across the region were closed on Thursday and some hospitals were evacuated, according to local media. Hundreds of flights were canceled in and out of Miami, Fort Lauderdale and Orlando, Florida, industry website Flightaware.com said early on Thursday.

Matthew was heading northwest at about 12 mph (19 kph) and was expected to continue on this track on Thursday, turning north-northwest on Thursday night, the National Hurricane Center said. The eye, or center, of the storm was expected to pass near Andros Island and New Providence in the northwestern Bahamas on Thursday.

In Nassau, the Bahamas capital located on New Providence, it was raining steadily on Thursday morning and high winds were bucking palm trees. Minor damage to roofs was reported but there was no flooding yet or reports of injuries.

DEVASTATION IN HAITI

On Tuesday and Wednesday Matthew, the strongest hurricane in the Caribbean since Felix struck Central America in 2007, had whipped Cuba and Haiti with 140 mph (225 kph) winds and torrential rain, pummeling towns and destroying livestock, crops and homes.

The devastation in Haiti, where officials said on Thursday at least 35 people were killed, prompted authorities to postpone a presidential election.

In Florida, fuel stations posted “out of gas” signs after cars waited in long lines to fill up.

Some residents prepared to wait out the storm and stocked up on water, milk and canned goods, emptying grocery store shelves, local media said.

Residents and business owners boarded up windows with plywood and hurricane shutters and placed sandbags to protect property against flooding.

“All boarded up and ready to bunker down. God be with us,” West Palm Beach resident Brad Gray said in a Tweet.

Scott said he activated 1,000 more members of the state National Guard on Thursday morning, bringing the total number of those summoned to 2,500. Another 4,000 stood ready to respond if needed, he said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Neil Hartnell in Nassau and Laila Kearney; Writing by Laila Kearney and Frances Kerry; Editing by John Stonestreet and Bill Trott)

Hurricane Matthew hammers Haiti and Cuba, bears down on U.S.

Damage from Hurricane Matthew

By Makini Brice and Sarah Marsh

LES CAYES, Haiti/GUANTANAMO, Cuba (Reuters) – Hurricane Matthew, the fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade, hit Cuba and Haiti with winds of well over 100 miles-per-hour on Tuesday, pummeling towns, farmland and resorts and forcing hundreds of thousands of people to take cover.

Dubbed by the U.N. the worst humanitarian crisis to hit Haiti since a devastating 2010 earthquake, the Category Four hurricane unleashed torrential rain on the island of Hispaniola that Haiti shares with the Dominican Republic.

As it barreled towards the United States, the eye of the storm had moved off the northeastern coast of Cuba by Tuesday night, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.

At least four people were killed in the Dominican Republic by collapsing walls and mudslides, as well as two in Haiti, where communications in the worst-hit areas were down, making it hard for authorities to assess the scale of the damage.

“Haiti is facing the largest humanitarian event witnessed since the earthquake six years ago,” said Mourad Wahba, the U.N. Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Haiti.

Over 200,000 people were killed in Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere, by the January 2010 earthquake.

Matthew was blowing sustained winds of 140 mph (230 kph) or more for much of Tuesday, though as night fell, the windspeed eased to about 130 mph, the NHC said.

Early reports suggested that Cuba had not been hit as hard as Haiti, where the situation was described as “catastrophic” in the port town of Les Cayes.

In the Cuban city of Guantanamo, streets emptied as people moved to shelters or inside their homes.

Matthew is likely to remain a powerful hurricane through at least Thursday night as it sweeps through the Bahamas towards Florida and the Atlantic coast of the southern United States, the NHC said. The storm is expected to be very near the east cost of Florida by Thursday evening, the center added.

The governor of South Carolina ordered the evacuation of more than 1 million people from Wednesday afternoon.

With communications out across most of Haiti and a key bridge impassable because of a swollen river, there was no immediate word on the full extent of potential casualties and damage from the storm in the poorest country in the Americas.

But Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook told reporters in Washington the U.S. Navy was considering sending an aircraft carrier and other ships to the region to aid relief efforts.

The United States has already offered Haiti the use of some helicopters, said Haitian Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph, who added that damage to housing and crops in the country was apparently extensive.

Twice destroyed by hurricanes in the 18th century, Les Cayes was hit hard by Matthew.

“The situation in Les Cayes is catastrophic, the city is flooded, you have trees lying in different places and you can barely move around. The wind has damaged many houses,” said Deputy Mayor Marie Claudette Regis Delerme, who fled a house in the town of about 70,000 when the wind ripped the roof off.

One man died as the storm crashed through his home in the nearby beach town of Port Salut, Haiti’s civil protection service said. He had been too sick to leave for a shelter, officials said. The body of a second man who went missing at sea was also recovered, the government said. Another fisherman was killed in heavy seas over the weekend as the storm approached.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

As much as 3 feet (1 meter) of rain was forecast to fall over hills in Haiti that are largely deforested and prone to flash floods and mudslides, threatening villages as well as shantytowns in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The hurricane has hit Haiti at a time when tens of thousands of people are still living in flimsy tents and makeshift dwellings because of the 2010 earthquake.

“Farms have been hit really hard. Things like plantains, beans, rice – they’re all gone,” said Hervil Cherubin, country director in Haiti for Heifer International, a nonprofit organization that is working with 30,000 farming families across Haiti. “Most of the people are going to have to start all over again. Whatever they accumulated the last few years has been all washed out.”

Matthew was churning around 20 miles (32 km) northwest of the eastern tip of Cuba at 11 p.m. EDT (0300 GMT). It was moving north at about 8 miles per hour (13 kph), the NHC said.

Cuba’s Communist government traditionally puts extensive efforts into saving lives and property in the face of storms, and authorities have spent days organizing teams of volunteers to move residents to safety and secure property.

The storm thrashed the tourist town of Baracoa in the province of Guantanamo, passing close to the disputed U.S. Naval base and military prison.

The U.S. Navy ordered the evacuation of 700 spouses and children along with 65 pets of service personnel as the storm approached. U.S. President Barack Obama had earlier canceled a trip to Florida scheduled for Wednesday because of the potential impact of the storm, the White House said.

A hurricane watch was in effect for Florida from an area just north of Miami Beach to the Volusia-Brevard county line, near Cape Canaveral, which the storm could reach on Thursday, the hurricane center said.

Tropical storm or hurricane conditions could affect parts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina later this week, even if the center of Matthew remained offshore, the NHC said.

Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for Florida on Monday, designating resources for evacuations and shelters and putting the National Guard on standby.

(Reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince and Makini Brice in Les Cayes; Additional reporting by Marc Frank in Cuba and Jorge Pineda in Dominican Republic; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel and Dave Graham; Editing by Simon Gardner, Sandra Maler and Nick Macfie)

Hurricane Matthew slams into western Haiti with deadly waves

A saleswoman shows lamps to a customers while other people flock to the supermarket to take care of last minute shopping as Hurricane Matthew approaches in Kingston, Jamaica

By Makini Brice

LES CAYES, Haiti (Reuters) – The fiercest Caribbean storm in almost a decade ripped into Haiti’s southwestern peninsula early on Tuesday with 145 mile-per-hour (230 kph) winds and storm surges that killed at least one person and damaged homes.

The eye of the violent Category 4 storm made landfall near Les Anglais on the western tip of Haiti at 7 a.m EDT, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, pounding coastal villages with strong gusts.

One man died when a wave crashed through his home in the beach town of Port Salut, Haiti’s civil protection service said. He had been too sick to leave for a shelter, officials said. A fisherman also was missing, they said.

Overnight, Haitians living in vulnerable coastal shacks on the Tiburon Peninsula frantically sought shelter as Matthew closed in, bringing heavy rain and driving the ocean into seaside towns.

About 3 feet (1 meter) of rain is forecast to fall over denuded hills prone to flash floods and mudslides, threatening villages as well as shanty towns in the capital Port-au-Prince, where heavy rain fell overnight.

Life-threatening flash floods and mudslides were likely in southern and northwestern Haiti, the hurricane center said. It expected Matthew to remain a powerful hurricane through at least Wednesday night.

The outer bands of the cyclone already had reached the area late on Monday, flooding dozens of houses in Les Anglais when the ocean rose, the mayor said. In the town of Les Cayes on the southern coast, the wind bent trees and the power went out.

A woman protects herself from rain as Hurricane Matthew approaches in Les Cayes, Haiti. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

A woman protects herself from rain as Hurricane Matthew approaches in Les Cayes, Haiti. REUTERS/Andres Martinez Casares

 

CHILDREN, PRISONERS MOVED

“We have gusts of wind hitting the whole area and the people have fled to a shelter,” Les Anglais mayor Jean-Claude Despierre said.

In the nearby town of Tiburon, the mayor said people who had been reluctant to leave their homes also ran for cover when the sea rose.

“Everyone is trying to find a safe place to protect themselves, the situation is very difficult,” Mayor Remiza Denize said, describing large waves hitting the town.

Poor Haitians are often reluctant to leave home in the face of storms, fearing their few belongings will be stolen.

Civil protection authorities said 130 children were evacuated by bus to a high school in the capital from an orphanage in the shoreside Cite Soleil slum, made up of tin shacks and open sewers and known as Haiti’s largest shanty town.

On the northern coast, about 300 detainees were transferred from a prison near the sea in the town of Jeremie, the Interior Ministry said.

The cyclone comes at a bad time for Haiti, where tens of thousands of people still live in tents after a 2010 earthquake that killed upwards of 200,000 people.

Cholera introduced by U.N. peacekeepers is expected to rise in the October rainy season, and the country was due to hold a long-delayed presidential election on Oct. 9.

The office of Interim President Jocelerme Privert said there was no change to the election date.

Crawling north at about 9 miles-per-hour (15 kph), the strongest storm since Hurricane Felix in 2009 threatens to linger long enough for its winds and rain to cause great damage in Haiti, where it will spend much of the day before hitting Cuba and the Bahamas later on Tuesday.

It will possibly reach Florida by Thursday as a major hurricane, although weaker than at present, the hurricane center said. Governor Rick Scott declared a state of emergency for Florida on Monday, designating resources for evacuations and shelters and putting the National Guard on standby.

CUBA PREPARES

In Les Cayes about 150 people huddled without electricity or food in the town’s largest shelter, a school.

“Since yesterday we’ve had nothing … We must sleep on the floor … Everyone is hungry,” said Erick Cange, 69 years old, a resident of the La Savanne neighborhood surrounding the school.

The conditions in the shelter compared unfavorably with Haiti’s neighbor Cuba, where authorities spent days organizing teams of volunteers to move residents to safety and secure property.

The storm is expected to make a direct hit later on Tuesday in the province of Guantanamo, the disputed home to a U.S. Naval base and military prison but also a small Cuban city. The U.S. Navy ordered the evacuation of 700 spouses and children of service personnel as the storm approached.

Guantanamo’s mountainous terrain is the country’s second coffee producer after nearby Santiago, and the storm poses a major threat to the current harvest.

The U.S. Agency for International Development said on Monday it was providing a combined $400,000 in aid to Haiti and Jamaica. The agency said in a statement it had pre-positioned relief supplies and was preparing to ship in additional supplies to the central Caribbean.

(Reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva in Port-au-Prince and Maini Brice in Les Cayes; Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh in Cuba and Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Simon Gardner and Bill Trott)

Hurricane Matthew’s threat to Haiti grows, some resist shelters

Families aboard a plane to evacuate them

By Makini Brice and Joseph Guyler Delva

LES CAYES/PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Hurricane Matthew edged closer to Haiti on Monday, bringing 130- mile-per-hour (215 kph) winds and torrential rain that could wreak havoc in the Caribbean nation, although some 2,000 people in one coastal town refused to evacuate.

Matthew’s center is expected to near southwestern Haiti and Jamaica on Monday night, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Crawling towards Haiti’s Les Cayes, Jamaica and Cuba at five miles per hour (seven kph), the storm could be just as slow leaving, giving its winds and rain more time to cause damage.

“We are worried about the slow pace of Hurricane Matthew, which will expose Haiti to much more rain, and the country is particularly vulnerable to flooding,” said Ronald Semelfort, director of Haiti’s national meteorology center.

The storm comes at a bad time for Haiti. The poorest country in the Americas is set to hold a long-delayed election next Sunday.

A combination of weak government and precarious living conditions make the country particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. More than 200,000 people were killed when a magnitude 7 earthquake struck in 2010.

“Even in normal times, when we have rain we have flooding that sometimes kills people,” said Semelfort, comparing Matthew to 1963’s Hurricane Flora, which swept away entire villages and killed thousands in Haiti.

RESISTANCE

In Jamaica too, officials were scrambling to protect the vulnerable, as residents boarded up windows and flocked to supermarkets to stock up on food, water, flashlights and beer.

In Cuba, which Matthew is due to reach on Tuesday, evacuation operations were well underway, with people voluntarily moving their belongings into neighbors’ houses or heading to shelters. Some even found cliff-side caves they said were the safest places to ride out storms.

Matthew was about 245 miles (3955 km) south-southeast of Jamaica’s Kingston early on Monday and moving north toward Haiti. The hurricane center ranked it at Category 4 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.

In Haiti, some streets were already flooded in Les Cayes, a town of about 70,000 people that was previously ravaged by hurricanes in 1781 and 1788.

But Haitian officials said about 2,000 residents of the La Savane neighborhood of Les Cayes refused to heed government calls to move out of their seaside homes, even though they were just a few miles from where the center of the hurricane is forecast to make landfall.

As the wind died down at night, people remained outside in La Savane, hanging out on porches, playing checkers and dominoes outside, and listening to music.

“The police and local authorities and our evacuation teams have been instructed to do all they can to move those people,” Interior Minister Francois Anick Joseph said.

“They have also been instructed to move them by force if necessary. We have an obligation to protect those peoples lives, even against their will.”

However, the chief of police for the southern region, Luc Pierre, said it was almost impossible to force such a large number of people to leave their homes.

“I would have to arrest all those people and take them to a safe place. This is very difficult,” he said, adding that the power had already gone off in the town.

Poor Haitians are at times reluctant to leave their homes in the face of impending storms, fearing their belongings will be stolen after they leave.

Only a few families had opted to move to a high school in La Savane, designated as a shelter for up to 600 people. It was without electricity and lit only by candlelight.

“There are babies crying here; there is nothing at all,” said Nadja, 32, who was pregnant with her fourth child.

(Additional reporting by Sarah Marsh and Gabriel Stargardter; Writing by Frank Jack Daniel; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Larry King)

Doctors say Haiti ripe for large Zika outbreak, virus under: reported

Residents in Haiti

By Makini Brice

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Posters warning of the dangers of Zika only reached Haiti’s health ministry in August, six months after the country reported an outbreak, in one example of delayed prevention efforts that have health experts worried a “large epidemic” is looming.

Gabriel Thimothe, a senior health ministry official, said the public service posters would be distributed to hospitals and airports shortly, but that health funding had been cut this year and foreign aid was sparse to fight the mosquito-borne virus that can cause severe birth defects.

Zika infections in pregnant women have been shown to cause microcephaly – a defect in which babies’ heads and brains are undersized – as well as other brain abnormalities.

Widespread fumigation that has limited the virus’ spread in other Caribbean nations such as Cuba only began in Haiti last month. Publicity campaigns have been all but invisible and hospital workers were on strike for much of the year.

“We’re expecting a large epidemic but we don’t know when it will occur,” said Jean-Luc Poncelet, the World Health Organization’s representative in Haiti. “There is under-reporting.”

Such an epidemic could severely strain Haiti’s fragile healthcare system, battered by an earthquake in 2010 that killed 300,000, and still struggling with a cholera epidemic that has sickened nearly 800,000 people.

WHO data show 5,000 suspected cases have been reported in more prosperous neighbor Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and has a similar population and climate. Haiti by contrast, has reported 3,000 suspected cases, according to numbers shared by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That makes Haiti’s Zika infection rate about 30 per 100,000 people, compared to 82 per 100,000 in Brazil, where the connection between Zika and microcephaly was first detected, and 50 per 100,000 in Dominican Republic

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has since confirmed more than 1,800 cases of microcephaly.

RAINY SEASON

In the Dominican Republic there were spikes in infections in March and May, broadly coinciding with rainy seasons on both sides of the island, a time when mosquitoes and diseases they carry normally flourish. In Haiti, the number of cases reported each week generally dropped from February through the rains.

A long strike by medical residents at most public hospitals coincided with that decline, raising the question of whether there were fewer infections or a lack of health workers available to register cases.

A Zika task force, which includes the government and non-governmental organizations, was formed in May, Thimothe said. Several U.S. health officials in Haiti told Reuters that the United States provided $3 million in August to combat Zika in the country, money that was initially intended to be deployed against Ebola in West Africa.

Thimothe said the impact of an explosion of microcephaly cases would be devastating, but denied the condition was more widespread than thought, even though many Haitian women give birth at home rather than in clinics.

His position is supported by WHO data through June, which did not show an uptick in microcephaly or Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder that can cause temporary paralysis and has also been linked to Zika.

But Louise Ivers, the senior health and policy advisor for Partners in Health, which along with Haitian organization Zanmi Lasante runs a hospital in the central town of Mirebalais, said she had seen at least 12 cases this year of Guillain-Barre, normally a rare condition.

The same hospital registered two microcephaly cases, including one confirmed to be linked to Zika, this summer.

“Maybe we are too late for prevention. Maybe we just have to manage the consequences,” Ivers said. “This could just be the tip of the iceberg.”

(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel and Alistair Bell)

Haiti finds case of microcephaly linked to Zika virus

Public Health guy for Haiti

By Makini Brice

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haiti has identified its first case of the birth defect microcephaly linked to the Zika virus, a senior health ministry official said on Tuesday.

Gabriel Thimothe, director general at the ministry of public health and population, said the case was confirmed on Saturday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Haiti has confirmed 14 cases of the birth defect since March, up from previous reports of two cases, Raymond Grand Pierre, the director of the Department of Health and Family in the Ministry of Health, said.

In the other 13 cases, authorities have not established a link to microcephaly although the number may indicate Zika is more widespread in Haiti than previously thought.

According to a chart provided by the Centers for Disease Control, Haiti has recorded nearly 3,000 Zika cases.

But the World Health Organization says the overwhelming majority of cases of the virus in the island nation are suspected and not confirmed.

Thimothe said the baby with Zika-linked microcephaly was born in the city of Mirebalais earlier this summer.

Boston-based Partners in Health and its sister organization, Haiti-based Zanmi Lasante, said in a statement on Aug. 9 that two babies had been born with microcephaly in their University Hospital Mirebalais.

U.S. health officials have concluded that Zika infections in pregnant women can cause microcephaly. The World Health Organization has said there is strong scientific consensus that Zika can also cause Guillain-Barre, a rare neurological syndrome that causes temporary paralysis.

The connection between Zika and microcephaly first came to light last fall in Brazil, which has now confirmed more than 1,600 cases of microcephaly that it considers to be related to Zika infections in the mothers.

Haiti’s healthcare system is still suffering from the fallout of the 2010 earthquake that killed about 300,000 people and a still-ongoing cholera epidemic that began shortly afterward, killing about 8,600 people and infecting 707,000.

Health facilities were also paralyzed this year by a months-long strike by medical residents over pay and working conditions, which Thimothe said had largely ended.

(Reporting by Makini Brice in Port-au-Prince; Editing by Sandra Maler and Cynthia Osterman)