Georges Barrels Into Haiti

By Michael Norton
Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, September 23, 1998; 9:54 a.m. EDT

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Hurricane Georges brought its violent winds and rains to Haiti-today, unleashing flash floods that local radio said killed at least six people in this poor Caribbean country.

As Georges marched relentlessly to the northwest, a hurricane watch was posted for south Florida. As many as 100,000 people in the Florida Keys were being ordered to leave for the mainland today.

If confirmed, the Haiti deaths would raise the hurricane's toll to 27, including 12 in the Dominican Republic, where Georges set off looting and street violence. Two of the dead were looters shot by police.

In the capital of the Dominican Republic, looters waded waist-deep in water, balancing televisions and air conditioners on their heads even as 110 mph winds toppled trees and crushed houses. Bands of youths with machetes and pistols roamed the streets, many of them drunk.

Haiti's Radio Metropole reported the six victims were killed when floodwaters undermined and collapsed a house in a Port-au-Prince neighborhood. Area streets were virtually impassable because of water and storm-driven debris, although the city's main arteries were clear.

Elsewhere, battering ocean waves swamped the seaside boulevard in the northern Haitian city of Cap-Haitien, and tin roofs flew off homes.

``We're scared a little, but we have a lot of faith,'' said Port-au-Prince supermarket clerk Nadine Augustin. Like most people in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country, her family had little means to prepare for the storm.

The Haitian government was able to muster only $130,000 for emergency assistance, said civil defense spokeswoman Yolaine Surena.

Mountain erosion and a lack of maintenance have left drainage systems in Haitian cities choked with silt and unable to alleviate flash floods, said meteorologist Renan Jean-Louis.

``Foundations give way every time the rain falls. The environment is deteriorating ceaselessly because there is no government enforcement of zoning regulations,'' Haitian environmentalist Ernst Wilson said today.

In November 1994, tropical storm Gordon killed at least 1,000 in Haiti's southern provinces, drowning them in torrential streams or burying them in mudslides.

At 8 a.m. EDT, Hurricane Georges was centered over the Windward Passage 600 miles southeast of Key West, Fla., and only 35 miles southeast of Cuba. It was moving west-northwest near 15 mph.

Warnings were declared in Cuba from Sancti Spiritus province eastward and in the central and southern Bahamas. In Florida, the hurricane watch included Monroe, Miami Dade, Broward and Collier counties.

The evacuation began in the lower Florida Keys at 7 a.m. and was to move up the island chain in phases. A single highway connects the 110-mile ribbon of islands, and officials were worried about gridlock as people tried to leave.

``They want to move people who are the farthest away first,'' said Barbara Doran of Florida's state emergency management office.

The mammoth storm was on a trajectory that could send it crashing into the Keys by late Thursday or early Friday.

Georges' winds dropped from 110 mph Tuesday to near 75 mph today as it moved across the island of Hispaniola, but were expected to strengthen over open water.

In the Dominican Republic, east of Haiti, soldiers enforced a curfew in the capital of Santo Domingo today after Georges ravaged the nation.

``We are occupying Santo Domingo to prevent criminal acts, which we see practically as acts of terrorism,'' said armed forces chief Ruben Paulino Alvarez.

Hurricane Georges caught Santo Domingo, on the south coast, almost entirely unprepared Tuesday. Forecasters had expected the storm to hit the northern Dominican coast.

City officials didn't open shelters until hours after strong winds and heavy bursts of rain had reached the capital. People continued to stream into shelters even as the full force of Georges hit.

Authorities said 80 percent of the roads in Santo Domingo were impassable because of downed trees and power lines and widespread flooding.

Much of the Dominican countryside was incommunicado, and authorities said it might take days before the full scope of the damage was known.

Georges knocked out communications with the U.S. Virgin Islands. Henry Laskowski, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in San Juan, said roofs were blown off and trees were felled on St. Croix, which is part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, but there were no reports of fatalities.

In Puerto Rico, where Georges' damage is expected to amount to hundreds of millions of dollars, residents began the sobering task of recovery.

``After the storm is always the worst,'' said Paula Aponte Figueroa, 71, as she swatted at mosquitoes, the roof of her house ripped off by the winds. ``You've got flooding, you've got mosquitoes and I have nowhere to go.''

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