Philadelphia Tribune - Index

Philadelphia Tribune - Sunday, September 07 2008 - Index

Page 4-C Sunday, September 7, 2008
Haitians
stranded
by floods
lack food
Jonathan M. Katz
GONAIVES, Haiti – Floodwaters frustrated
efforts by Argentine peacekeepers to distribute
food at orphanages marooned by Tropical
Storm Hanna on Thursday. They hunkered
down in their base as desperate people begged
for food and water outside the gates.
A Haitian politician struggling to gauge the
extent of the damage in Haiti’s fourth-largest
city helicoptered into the U.N. compound and
said the situation is critical.
“If they don’t have food, it can be dangerous,”
Sen. Youri Latortue said Thursday after arriving
from Haiti’s capital. “They can’t wait.”
Half the homes in the low-lying city of
160,000 remain flooded in Hanna’s wake, estimated
Lt. Sergio Hoj, spokesman for the
Argentine battalion.
Some 250,000 people are affected in the
Gonaives region, including 70,000 in 150 shelters
across the city, according to an international
official who spoke on condition of
anonymity because he was not authorized to
release the information.
The official death toll rose to 61 Thursday as
Hanna finally moved north with near-hurricane
winds on a path toward the southeastern U.S.
coast. But there was no way of knowing how
many people might be dead in the chaos, or
how many had been driven from their homes.
And forecasters warned that Hurricane Ike
could hit the Western hemisphere’s poorest
country next week.
Gonaives lies in a flat river plain between the
ocean and deforested mountains that run with
mud even in light rains. Hanna swirled over
Haiti for four days, dumping vast amounts of
water, blowing down fruit trees and ruining
stores of food as it swamped tin-roofed houses.
Many of the thousands of people who fled to
rooftops, balconies and higher ground have
gone without food for days, and safe drinking
water was in short supply as the fetid carcasses
of drowned farm animals bobbed in soupy
floodwaters.
Businesses were closed – both because of
flooding and for fear of looting.
People in water up to their knees shouted to
peacekeepers to give them drinking water, and
women on balconies waved empty pots and
spoons.
The Argentine soldiers have plucked residents
from rooftops that were the only visible
parts of their houses, but had little capacity to
deliver food and water.
“It is a great movement of panic in the city,”
Interior Minister Paul Antoine Bien-Aime told
the AP from a U.N. speedboat.
The Gonaives area accounted for most of the
2,000 victims of Tropical Storm Jeanne in
2004. Some residents said the current flooding
was at least as bad.
“This is worse than Jeanne,” said Carol
Jerome, who fled from Gonaives on Tuesday.
Haiti’s government has few resources to help.
Rescue convoys have been blocked by huge
lakes that formed over every road into town.
Associated Press journalists rode in with the
first group of U.N. troops to reach the city
aboard Zodiac boats.
The U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince declared
a disaster situation, freeing $100,000 in emergency
aid, spokeswoman Mari Tolliver said. She
said hygiene kits, plastic sheeting and water
jugs for up to 5,000 families were expected to
arrive from Miami on Thursday, but the biggest
problem is reaching the victims.
Food for the Poor managed to get a shipment
of food and water to Gonaives on Thursday, and
expects to distribute rice, beans, clothes, boots
and generators in the next couple of days.
“The situation in Gonaives is catastrophic,”
Daniel Rouzier, Haiti chairman of the Floridabased
nonprofit, wrote in an e-mail. “We, just
like the rest of the victims ... have limited
mobility. You can’t float a boat, drive a truck or
fly anything to the victims.”
He said waters have receded in some places,
leaving behind an almost a 7-foot-high wall of
mud. – (AP)
This photo released by the United Nations
Stabilization Mission in Haiti, MINUSTAH,
shows a flooded area of Gonaives, Haiti,
Wednesday. — AP PHOTO/MARCO DORMINO/MINUSTAH
Residents cross the Hope River carrying luggage on their heads, after a major bridge connecting
Kingston to eastern parishes was destroyed during the passage of Hurricane Gustav on Aug.
30. Gustav hit Jamaica two days earlier. — AP PHOTO/COLLIN REID
Hurricane season hits
area, almost nonstop
The 2008 hurricane season is packing a wallop
already. Most people are familiar with the fact that
there is a hurricane season, but some don’t know
exactly what time period that is. Hurricane season
officially runs from June 1-Nov. 30. For anyone
traveling to the Caribbean these dates are critical
to your plans.
Experts track these storms as they develop from
tropical depressions (carrying winds up to 38 miles
per hour into tropical storms (carrying winds
between 39-73 mph), which can evolve into a hurricane-sustaining
winds of 74 mph or higher.
From all the way back in April, hurricane forecasters
had already predicted that 15 named
storms would develop out of the Atlantic Ocean.
Ten of these storms and hurricanes have already
materialized, some of them wreaking havoc and
leaving casualties behind.
Tropical Storm Arthur, the first of the season,
made landfall in Belize on May 30, causing an estimated
$78 million worth of damage and killing
nine people.
Hurricane Bertha, Tropical Storm Cristobal,
Hurricane Dolly, Tropical Storm Edouard,
Tropical Storm Fay and Hurricane Gustav followed
quickly on Arthur’s heels. Out of these
storms, Hurricane Dolly and Hurricane Gustav
caused the most destruction.
Dolly left behind $1.2 billion worth of damage in
Texas, while flash floods from the remnants left
two people dead in New Mexico.
Gustav was even more damaging, causing
dozens of deaths in the Caribbean. From Aug. 27
through Sept. 1, the intensifying winds brought
catastrophic damage to the islands.
The hurricane killed 85 people in Haiti, the
Dominican Republic and Jamaica, with seven still
missing in Haiti.
Gustav also made landfall in Cuba, packing
winds up to 150 mph, first on the island of Isla de
la Juventud and then in Pinar del Rio Province.
Even though the storm had weakened, carrying
115 mph winds, by the time it emerged in the Gulf
of Mexico, it caused a lot of flooding in Louisiana,
but nothing compared to the devastation of
Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
In the final tally, Gustav was responsible for 125
deaths and up to $20 billion in damage.
Many people who lived in the Caribbean have
had an encounter with a hurricane or tropical
storm. Magdalene Downie came to the United
States in the early 1970s but she can still remember
living through a hurricane when she was only
9 or 10 years old living in Jamaica. She remembers
as if it was yesterday.
“I noticed when I woke up that morning it was
very cloudy, then it started raining,” she said. “I
had to take the bus into Kingston that day,” she
continued, “When I got on the bus, people were
telling the driver that he had to hurry up and get
off the road. About an hour into the drive, the wind
started picking up stronger and stronger. The
lights started blinking as if the electricity was
going to go out, but we got to into town and back
home safely.”
Downie said that by the time they got back
home, she and her family had to abandon their
house, which sat on a hill above a gully, because
everyone was predicting a landslide.
They took shelter at a neighbor’s house.
“They had just enough room to squeeze us in,”
she recalled. “While we were there, the howling
winds tore the roof off and water came pouring in.
They had to cover the baby’s crib with zinc. We
were all afraid. Debris from the school and other
buildings blocked the roads. There was a lot of
looting.”
She said the recovery effort seemed endless.
People who never prayed before were praying.
Downie said that every time she watches news
coverage about the hurricanes the memory comes
back vividly.
Only halfway through the season, forecasters
are keeping an eye on Hurricane Hanna, which
neared the Bahamas on Sept. 1. It moved on to
Haiti where it weakened to a tropical storm, but
still caused 93 deaths.
Hanna is aiming for the eastern U.S. Eyes are
on Hurricane Ike, near the Cape Verde Islands,
anxiously waiting to see if it will strengthen.
Finally, Tropical Storm Josephine is still being
monitored, coming also from the same area off the
coast of Africa.
With all of this information, I, for one, do not
plan travel during hurricane season. I try to do my
traveling to the Caribbean or to South Florida
before June and after November. I might take a
chance and travel at the very beginning or at the
very end of the season, if the airfares are really
good.
‘El Father’ trading rap for religion
Omar Marrero
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A Puerto Rican reggaeton
star announced Wednesday he will give up
his role as a rapper known for lyrics about violence
and womanizing to devote his life to God.
Hector “El Father” Delgado held a surprise
news conference in Puerto Rico’s capital to say
he will follow a religious calling and preach positive
messages to youngsters once he has completed
a tour for his next CD, “Final Judgment,”
which he said would have ‘EChristian lyrics.
“My way now is to serve Christ in spirit and
truth,” Delgado told reporters, adding he intended
to donate his cache of bling, including diamonds
and other sparklers for wrists, fingers
and neck, to charitable groups.
Delgado, who grew up in the Puerto Rican city
of Carolina, won a 2003 Billboard Latin Music
Award for rap album of the year as part of the
duo “Los Bambinos,” and he has collaborated
with U.S. hip-hop superstar Jay-Z.
He was one of the pioneers of reggaeton — a
mix of tropical rhythms, reggae, hip-hop and rap
from Puerto Rico that took hold in the major
U.S. Hispanic markets of Miami, Los Angeles
and New York.
Delgado’s announced retirement from reggaeton
comes as the often irreverent Puerto Rican
genre is going through some growing pains as it
fights for a place on the mainstream stage.
It also comes about six months after a Puerto
Rican woman seeking an autograph from
Delgado was grabbed and apparently bitten by
someone in his entourage and several shots
were fired. Delgado was acquitted of several
criminal charges filed against him in the incident.
– (AP)
Cubans
ask easing
of bans,
cite storm
Will Weissert
HAVANA – Two prominent Cuban dissidents
have asked U.S. President George W. Bush to
temporarily loosen restrictions on travel and
sending money to the communist-run island to
help tens of thousands left homeless by
Hurricane Gustav.
Marta Beatriz Roque and Vladimiro Roca
signed a Spanish-language letter to Bush which
they delivered to the U.S. Interests Section in
Havana on Wednesday. Officials at the mission,
which Washington maintains here instead of an
embassy, said they passed it along to the White
House.
The letter, sent by fax to foreign reporters on
Thursday, asks Bush to lift restrictions on travel
and money transfers to Cuba by Cuban exiles
in the United States “for at least two months.”
“You know as well as we do that any family
member abroad would like to have physical contact
with those who are going through a difficult
situation,” they wrote.
Gustav slammed into western Cuba with 140
mph winds on Saturday, ripping roofs off
homes, leveling buildings, tossing trees, cars
and power lines and crumpling electric towers.
About 100,000 homes nationwide were damaged,
thousands beyond repair, and Fidel
Castro suggested recovery could cost billions of
dollars.
“Knowing how intransigent the Cuban government
is about accepting help from your
country ... we ask that you permit American
non-governmental organizations to help the
region so as to soothe the suffering of its inhabitants,”
the dissidents wrote.
Past hurricanes have served to soften the U.S.
embargo, if indirectly.
In 2000, the U.S. Congress authorized direct
sales of American food and farm products to the
island. The communist government refused to
import even one grain of rice for more than a
year because of a dispute over financing, but
finally agreed to take advantage of the law after
Hurricane Michelle in November 2001 cut into
its food stocks.
Today the United States is the island’s leading
supplier of food.
Raul Castro, who succeeded his brother Fidel
as president six months ago, has not asked for
international aid, though Russian planes carrying
tents, building materials and food landed in
Cuba on Thursday.
Roque is a former government official who
was among 75 political activists sentenced to
prison in 2003 on charges of conspiring with
U.S. officials to undermine Cuba’s communist
system. She was subsequently conditionally
released for medical reasons.
Roca is a former fighter pilot and son of a legendary
communist leader who served nearly five
years in prison for his political beliefs. – (AP)
President Bush waves from Air Force One
prior to departing to Louisiana at Andrews Air
Force Base, Md., Wednesday. Bush is traveling
to Louisiana for an update on relief efforts
for Hurricane Gustav. — AP PHOTO/JOSE LUIS MAGANA
Jamaicans halt
banana exports
Howard Campbell
KINGSTON, Jamaica – Jamaica’s biggest
banana company said Tuesday it will be forced to
temporarily halt all exports of the staple fruit
after Gustav flattened entire plantations as it
raked the island as a tropical storm last week.
Marshall Hall, chairman of Jamaica Producers
Group, which accounts for the large majority of
the Caribbean island’s banana exports, told
reporters the storm destroyed more than 70 percent
of farms in Portland, St. Mary, and St.
Thomas parishes producing the key crop.
“It’s very depressing and disheartening,” Hall
told reporters, after surveying damage left by
Gustav.
Hall said Tuesday he could not venture an estimate
for how long the banana export sector
would be shut down. – (AP)