MIKE MELIA Tropical Storm Hanna roared along the edge of the Bahamas yesterday before a possible hurricane hit on North and South Carolina, leaving at least 61 dead in Haiti.
MIKE MELIA
Tropical Storm Hanna roared along the edge of the Bahamas yesterday before a possible hurricane hit on North and South Carolina, leaving at least 61 dead in Haiti.
Hurricane Ike, a still-more dangerous category 4 storm, was advancing from the east.
Hanna was forecast to pass east of the Atlantic archipelago before striking the coast of the Carolinas tonight, but the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami said Hanna's sprawling bands of outer winds were likely to hit far sooner. Tropical storm force winds extended as far as 290 miles from the centre.
Haitian authorities yesterday blamed Hanna for 61 deaths, mostly from flooding.
Civil Protection Department spokesman Abel Nazaire said 21 deaths were in the northern city of Gonaives, which has been almost entirely cut off by floodwaters.
The storm also was blamed for one death in Puerto Rico.
Hanna's heart was about 280 miles east-south-east of Nassau early yesterday. It was moving north-west near 12mph.
Its maximum sustained winds of 70mph were just short of hurricane force and forecasters said it could strengthen.
A hurricane watch was posted from Surf City, North Carolina to Edisto Beach, South Carolina, with a tropical storm force watch south to Altamaha Sound, Georgia.
Forecasters said it could curve north-eastwards after hitting the US coast and run up the seaboard past New York with tropical storm-force winds.
No major damage or injuries have yet been reported in the Bahamas.
"Most certainly I am relieved. We are tranquil," said Stephen Russell, interim director of the Bahamas National Emergency Management Agency.
However, he was already worried about Ike and tropical storm Josephine behind it.
"As soon as we are clear with Hanna, we have to turn our eyes now on Ike, a powerful one coming ashore," Russell said.
Ike yesterday had maximum sustained winds near 145mph. It was centred 550 miles north-east of the Leeward Islands and forecasters said it could reach the Bahamas by Monday. Ike is the third big hurricane of the Atlantic season, which runs from June 1 to November 30. The other two were Bertha and Gustav, which was blamed for 112 deaths in the Caribbean, including 76 in Haiti.
Josephine, too, grew stronger yesterday after weakening a day earlier. Josephine had maximum sustained winds near 60mph and was moving west-north-west.
"We've got three of them on the way. We've just got to be prepared," said Frank Augustine, a 47-year convenience store manager, as he bought 10 water jugs at a Nassau depot.
Only a few dozen of the Bahamas's roughly 700 islands are inhabited, but they are near sea level and have little natural protection. The storm has drenched the Turks and Caicos and Puerto Rico but wreaked the most havoc in storm-weary Haiti, where it flooded the western city of Gonaives.
