AFP/Roseau
Tropical Storm Erika killed at least 12 people as it swept over the small island of Dominica, its prime minister said yesterday, noting his country had been “badly beaten.”
Local media, meanwhile, put the death toll at 35 as rescuers made their way to the village of Petite Savanne deemed the hardest hit by the powerful weather system.
“I can confirm 12 but the number may be higher,” Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit tweeted on his way to the hamlet. According to The Dominican.net, 27 people were reported dead in Petite Savanne when a “massive mudslide” demolished several houses there.
“The country has been badly beaten,” Skerrit said in an audio message.
“I am asking residents to come out to help clean the streets, clear ravines and public buildings today,” he tweeted.
Word of the death and destruction put the Dominican Republic on edge as it braced for a direct blast from Erika Friday afternoon.
“The latest trajectory models indicate that the Dominican Republic will see a direct hit from Erika,” Gloria Ceballos, the director of the National Meteorological Office, said via Twitter.
With Erika just 65 miles southeast of Santo Domingo, authorities issued a red alert, the country’s highest.
Schools were closed and civil protection organizations were ordered to be at the ready so that, if necessary, they could quickly jump into action.
With unusually high waves expected, the Emergency Operations Center also closed beaches and banned vessels from leaving ports.
The Dominican Republic is particularly vulnerable to the impact of tropical storms due to the existence of rivers and streams in the capital Santo Domingo and elsewhere.
Packing maximum sustained winds of near 85 kilometers per hour, the storm could bring up to 10 inches of rain across parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, as well as Turks and Caicos and the southeastern and central Bahamas through today, forecasters at the Miami-based National Hurricane Centre said.
“These rains could cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides,” it warned.
In Puerto Rico, Erika left nearly 150,000 people without power, but appeared not to have caused major damage.
One possible silver lining: the rains could help ease a prolonged drought in the northern Caribbean. The storm’s approach also set off a scramble to prepare as far north as the US state of Florida, where the governor declared a state of emergency.
On its current trajectory, Erika could smack into southern Florida by early Monday, forecasters said. In declaring the state of emergency, Governor Rick Scott warned that the storm would “travel up the spine of Florida’s peninsula.”
“Tropical Storm Erika poses a severe threat to the entire state of Florida and requires that timely precautions are taken to protect the communities, critical infrastructure, and general welfare of this state,” Scott said.
In Washington, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said President Barack Obama had been briefed about preparations for Erika’s possible landfall in the United States.
The centre of Erika was on track to move over the Dominican Republic yesterday, then near the Turks and Caicos Islands in the night, and on to the central and northwestern Bahamas today, the NHC said.
Cars drive in the rain and past fallen pieces of palm trees in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
