Tomas a tropical storm, for now
Caribbean system heads toward Haiti
KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent – Hurricane Tomas weakened to a tropical storm Sunday night after tearing off roofs and downing power lines in the eastern Caribbean. Forecasters said it could regain force and veer toward earthquake-stunned Haiti, where some 1.3 million people living under tarps and in tents are vulnerable to heavy rains and wind.
With maximum sustained winds of 65 mph, Tomas slipped under the threshold for a hurricane. The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami predicted more weakening during the next 24 hours before it begins to strengthen again around midweek.
Daniel Brown, a center forecaster, said Tomas is “likely to strengthen when it’s over the central Caribbean,” and Haiti could be hit by rains from outer bands in another couple of days.
Late Sunday, Tomas’ center was steaming west over open waters at nearly 15 mph, posing no immediate threat to land. It was expected to continue on that track for the next two days, then gradually turn toward the north.
Brown said it’s too early to say how strong Tomas could be later in the week or if Haiti might suffer a direct hit, but “there’s certainly going to be the threat of heavy rainfall” in the impoverished nation, where widespread deforestation and ramshackle homes mean even moderate rains can cause devastation.
Aid workers in Haiti fear the worst. Hundreds of thousands of people there have only rudimentary shelter nearly 10 months after the Jan. 12 earthquake, and a cholera epidemic has killed more than 330 and hospitalized nearly 5,000.
“It’s just so complex and it’s very serious,” said Imogen Wall of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “We are so stretched already with the cholera, and we are running a daily earthquake response as well.”
Two deaths and a few injuries were reported from Tomas in a cluster of islands at the Caribbean Sea’s eastern entrance.
St. Lucia Prime Minister Stephenson King told a local radio station that an American tourist drowned Saturday at Cas En Bas beach in the island’s north. He did not know the tourist’s identity or immediately provide any other details. A 31-year-old St. Lucian woman also died in a road accident during the storm, he said.