Via Reuters: Haiti braces as Hurricane Tomas roars over Caribbean. Excerpt:
Authorities on Sunday urged hundreds of thousands of Haitians living in crowded tent camps to seek new shelter as Hurricane Tomas roared across the Caribbean with Haiti in its projected path.
Tomas was downgraded to a Category 1 storm after ripping off roofs and knocking down trees and power lines across several small eastern Caribbean islands. It is expected to weaken to a tropical storm in the next 24 hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
But the storm is seen regaining strength by Wednesday as it passes south of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, where more than one million survivors of a devastating Jan. 12 earthquake are living in sprawling tent camps.
Under some models of the storm's track, Tomas is forecast to turn to the north and head toward Haiti as a hurricane as early as Thursday. Other projections show the storm possibly shifting course farther east toward the Dominican Republic or even west toward Jamaica.
Any heavy rains and powerful winds from Tomas would pose a significant threat to the some 1.3 million homeless survivors now living in tent and tarpaulin camps in the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince.
Tomas, the 12th hurricane of a very active 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, was packing top sustained winds of 75 miles (120 km) per hour, the Miami-based center said.
In Haiti, the government and international aid groups are already struggling with a major cholera epidemic that has killed at least 330 people and sickened over 4,700 people.
As Tomas churned over the open Caribbean sea, officials appealed to Haitians in tent camps to start evacuating, encouraging them to travel to the homes of family or friends.
I see their point, but putting thousands of Haitians on the road (assuming they have relatives or friends who can put them up) will also slow down vehicles carrying medical supplies—and likely expose the evacuees to cholera, or spread it, or both.
