Earthquake-ravaged Haiti now getting braced for hurricane havoc

Aid workers rushed to prepare for a hurricane that forecasters said could hit Haiti this week. It is a formidable challenge in a nation already coping with a cholera epidemic and trying to help hundreds of thousands still living in tent camps nearly 10 months after a devastating earthquake.
By The Newsroom
Published 2nd Nov 2010, 21:52 BST
Updated 2nd Nov 2010, 21:52 BST

Many people in the camps said they did not know Tropical Storm Tomas might be coming, but there was little they could do living in flimsy shelters to protect themselves from the elements.

"I didn't know about (the storm). Maybe somebody came by to say something yesterday when I was out," said Florence Ramond, a 22-year-old mother and food vendor who is living on the Petionville Club golf course in a refugee camp managed by actor Sean Penn's relief organisation.

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Even knowing, Ms Ramond said, she could do nothing to secure her home, a shack made of tarpaulin, wood and a tin door. The roof blew off in an unnamed September 24 storm that ripped through the capital, killing at least five people and destroying or damaging thousands of tents. "They always go around and tell us to tie the tarps up, but I don't have a rope," she said.

The family lost their home in the earthquake, which killed Ms Ramond's niece. Her brother, Joel, is in hospital with cholera in the Artibonite Valley – part of an epidemic that has killed more than 300.

Tomas would be the first major storm to strike Haiti since the January 12 earthquake that killed as many as 300,000 people and forced millions from their homes.

In 200 the storms Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike battered Haiti in the space of a month, killing nearly 800 people.