Tropical Storm Elsa churns past Haiti, headed for Cuba
Tropical Storm Elsa churned late on Saturday off the southwestern coast of Haiti, headed towards Jamaica and eastern Cuba as forecasters warned of heavy rains, flash flooding and mudslides.
The weather system brought maximum sustained winds of 65mph (100kph) and was moving northwest at 17mph, the US National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.
“There are fairly intense gusts of wind and light rain, but so far we have not recorded any damage,” said Jerry Chandler, director of the Haitian Civil Protection Agency.
Elsa was the Atlantic’s first hurricane of the season on Friday, when it was a Category 1 storm, until being downgraded on Saturday afternoon.
The storm was not expected to change in strength overnight, with “some slight strengthening possible on Sunday afternoon as Elsa approaches the south-central coast of Cuba”, the NHC said in its 11pm (0300 GMT yesterday) update.
Forecasters had warned of rainfall of 4-8” (10-20cm) across portions of southern Hispaniola and Jamaica, with isolated areas receiving 15”.
“This rain may lead to scattered flash flooding and mudslides, some of which may be significant in nature,” the NHC said.
Cuba is Elsa’s next target, with hurricane conditions expected on the eastern part of the island on Sunday, while the southern coast could see a storm surge of 3-5’.
From Sunday into Monday, parts of Cuba could get 5-10” of rain, with isolated incidents of 15” resulting in “significant flash flooding and mudslides”, the NHC said.
In Haiti, authorities raised the alert level to the maximum red on Saturday morning, warning the entire country to remain vigilant.
Officials in the impoverished nation have voiced fears that they lack emergency supplies such as food and water.
The government recently used a good part of its emergency resources in another crisis: the evacuation of thousands of people from their homes in Port-au-Prince because of raging gang violence.
Many of the displaced are staying in gyms, schools, or other public buildings, and some supplies originally earmarked for hurricane season have been diverted to support them, Chandler said.
Authorities want to ship emergency supplies to the southern coast, but heavily armed gangs control part of the only road leading from the capital to the south and are allowing nothing through.
To reach these threatened areas, Chandler said, “we have to go through red zones”, referring to gang-held territory.
In 2016, Category 4 Hurricane Matthew killed more than 500 people in southern Haiti and caused nearly $2bn in damage.
In the United States, parts of the Florida Keys were placed under a tropical storm watch on Saturday evening with forecasters expecting rain, storm surges, and strong winds from Elsa to affect the area and the Florida peninsula early next week.