Vulnerable Haiti braced for flash floods and violent winds from the extremely dangerous Hurricane Matthew as the powerful storm kept on a path early Monday aiming at the hemisphere's poorest country.
The eye of the approaching Category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 230 km/h late Sunday, was expected to pass to the east of Jamaica and then cross over or be very close to the southwestern tip of Haiti late
Monday or early Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said. It was predicted to hit the lightly populated eastern tip of Cuba on Tuesday afternoon.
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Forecasters said as much as 100 centimetres of rain could fall on some isolated areas of Haiti, raising fears of deadly mudslides and floods in the heavily deforested country where many families live in flimsy houses with corrugated metal roofs.
"Some of us will die but I pray it won't be a lot," said Serge Barionette in the southern town of Gressier, where a river recurrently bursts its banks during serious storms.As of 5 a.m. ET, the storm was centred about 470 kilometres southwest of Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince. It was moving north at 9 km/h.
"We are worried about the slow pace of Hurricane Matthew, which will expose Haiti to much more rain, and the country is particularly vulnerable to flooding," said Ronald Semelfort, director of the Haiti's national meteorology centre.
Vulnerable to floods
The impoverished country is particularly vulnerable to devastating floods because of the steep terrain, with hillsides and mountains often devoid of trees that hold back water because they have been cut down to make charcoal for cooking fires. Many Haitians live in flimsy houses that are not able to withstand a serious storm, typically built of scraps of wood with corrugated metal roofs.
Teams of civil protection officials walked the streets of Les Cayes and other areas urging residents to secure their homes, prepare emergency kits and warn their neighbours. Many Haitians appeared unaware of the looming hurricane.
"No, I haven't heard anything about a bad storm coming here," farmer Jean-Bernard Mede said with a concerned expression as he took a break from walking three cows along a dirt track outside the flood-prone town of Leogane. "I'll do what I can for my animals and my family."Officials with Haiti's civil protection agency said there were roughly 1,300 emergency shelters across the country, enough to hold up to 340,000 people.
Rain was already lashing parts of Jamaica and flooding some homes.
"It's important for individuals to know that we will be severely affected, certainly in the eastern part of Jamaica," Angela Browne Burke, mayor of the capital of Kingston, said to CBC on Sunday afternoon.
Strongest since Felix
Matthew is one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recent history and briefly reached the top classification, Category 5, becoming the strongest hurricane in the region since Felix in 2007. The hurricane centre said the storm appeared to be on track to pass east of Florida through the Bahamas, but it was too soon to predict with certainty whether it would threaten any spot on the U.S. East Coast.
In a brief address carried on state radio, interim President Jocelerme Privert urged Haitians to listen closely to official warnings and be ready to move. "To those people living in houses that could collapse, it's necessary that you leave these houses to take refuge in schools and churches," he said.A hurricane warning was posted for the southeastern Bahamas. A hurricane watch was in effect for the central Bahamas and the Turks and Caico Islands, and a tropical storm warning was issued for parts of the Dominican Republic, where authorities began mandatory evacuations of areas at risk for flooding.
After passing Jamaica and Haiti, Matthew was projected to reach Cuba. The centre was expected to pass about 80 kilometres east of the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, where authorities evacuated about 700 spouses and children of service members on military transport planes to Florida.
Headed for Halifax?
The storm could continue north to parts of Canada, according to forecasters.
"This time next week, Halifax may be bracing for the arrival of Matthew," in time for the Thanksgiving Day weekend, Chris St. Clair of the Weather Network said over the weekend.
"In the week ahead, it could track due north toward Atlantic Canada," he said.
Elsewhere, Cuban President Raul Castro travelled to the eastern city of Santiago to oversee that country's preparations.
A report on state television showed the 85-year-old leader discussing the hurricane's path with ministers and saying: "This is a hurricane we need to prepare for as if it were twice as powerful as Sandy," the 2012 hurricane that devastated much of Cuba's second largest city.
Hundreds of Cuban soldiers were moving in convoys around the city and state workers with chain saws cut tree limbs overhanging power lines and homes. Trains from Havana to eastern Cuba were cancelled and the government called on residents of eastern Cuba to move livestock to high ground, tape up their windows and store potable water ahead of the hurricane's arrival.