Earthquake-Ravaged Haitians Are Facing a New Threat: The Upcoming Rainy Season

February 20, 2010

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS (BOSTON GLOBE) - Aid workers are warning that 1.2 million people left homeless by the powerful Jan. 12 quake still lack basic shelter and latrines, putting them at high risk of flash floods, mudslides, and diseases such as typhoid and malaria.

Some rain typically falls every month in Haiti, meteorologists say, but heavy downpours could begin as early as this month, intensify in April and May, and continue through hurricane season, which runs from June through November.

Even in an ordinary year, the rainy season can be deadly. Deforestation on the towering mountains provides little to stop torrential rains from flooding Port-au-Prince below. This year, the earthquake has left tens of thousands of people sleeping under flimsy tents of bedsheets or plastic tarps, and surrounded by wreckage that could become projectiles in high winds.

"They're like sitting ducks right now," said Stephen Leatherman, the former director of the International Hurricane Center at Florida International University, who had been scheduled to visit Haiti the week of the earthquake to evaluate the risk of flooding from hurricanes.

"With the rain, everything's going to get worse."

In Carrefour, a city outside Port-au-Prince, rain poured down around 4 a.m. on a recent morning, soaking thousands of people still sleeping on soccer fields and in the streets, Harry Jean, 36, reported in a telephone interview.

"We don't have tents, and we have no house," said Jean, who has relatives in Boston. "Everybody is in the street. We are very worried about the rain."

With stronger downpours expected in coming months, government officials and aid workers have a narrow window to act.

The hurdles are extraordinary: More than 75 percent of Port-au-Prince was destroyed, according to one aid agency, Oxfam International; thousands of people are living in flimsy tent cities that could easily be washed away; and a government laboratory that diagnoses diseases is struggling to become fully operational.

Even weather forecasting systems are decimated. After the earthquake, the most reliable weather reports for Haiti have been coming from a team of meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Fort Worth. The reports are sent to the US military and aid workers, but the thousands of Haitians who still lack electricity and access to news cannot get them first-hand.

"That's what's so extraordinary about this right now - so much of the stuff we count on in a society has been destroyed there," said Robert Tauxe, deputy director of the food- and water-borne diseases division at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, which has officials working in Haiti.

Meteorologists warn that even an ordinary rainstorm can cause major damage in Haiti because of the vast deforestation and the flimsy housing, in a country where, even before the earthquake, 80 percent of the people were poor.

"It's not even that it has to be a major hurricane," said Philip Klotzbach, research scientist at Colorado State University's atmospheric science department. "Even a tropical storm, if it moves slowly and drops a lot of rain, can be devastating."

Kerry Emanuel, professor of atmospheric science at MIT, called for an independent international weather-forecasting system that would have a mandate to warn the people about an impending storm.

"It's the rain that you really worry about, the freshwater flooding," he said. "That's always a concern with Haiti and it's obviously worse because of the fact that the country's very susceptible right now."

The probability of a major hurricane hitting Haiti this year is about 13 percent, according to Colorado State. The rainy season blends into hurricane season, which peaks from August through October.

Hurricanes have caused widespread deaths in the impoverished nation. In September 2004, Hurricane Jeanne killed more than 3,000 people in torrential rains and floods. In 2008, four punishing hurricanes left more than 700 dead.

As the weather turns, aid groups are intensifying calls for money and action before the rains arrive - and afterward.

Last week, Kim Bolduc, the United Nations humanitarian aid coordinator in Haiti, issued an urgent call to governments and other institutions to provide funding for shelters. About 270,000 people have received tents or plastic sheeting, but more than 1 million need them.

Oxfam officials in Haiti also fear diarrhea and other waterborne diseases could spread because of the poor drainage, crowding, and lack of latrines. They urged the government to quickly decide when and where to relocate the homeless, and called on the United States to provide stronger leadership for the hundreds of nonprofit agencies with operations in Haiti.

Leatherman, the Florida hurricane specialist, urged Haitian officials to consider relocating the capital to another part of the country, at least its government operations, because the city is on an earthquake fault line and in the middle of a flood plain.

Such a move would be controversial, but not unprecedented: Belize shifted its capital inland after Hurricane Hattie demolished much of Belize City in October 1961.

"There was a lot of resistance in Belize, too, but somebody's got to make these decisions, and with the capital city being there, it becomes no government" if another natural disaster hits Port-au-Prince, Leatherman said. "With no government, you've got total chaos."

After the rain, Haiti will face new problems, as puddles become breeding grounds for mosquitoes that spread malaria, dengue fever, and other illnesses, said Tauxe, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Also, clean water and sanitation are major concerns. If safe drinking water and latrines are unavailable, people could be exposed to fecal-contaminated water and contract diseases such as dysentery, hepatitis A, or typhoid, he said.

About 2 inches of rain could fall this month, a much smaller amount than in April, when 6 or 7 inches could fall, said Jud Ladd, chief of the operational services division for the National Weather Service's southern region.

William Gray, a longtime hurricane forecaster at Colorado State, said they are forecasting a slightly above-average year for hurricanes, but said it does not mean that Haiti will be hit.

"The earthquake has done so much damage," he said. "The last thing they need is a lot of heavy rain and mudslides and all that to complicate things. Let's hope it doesn't happen to them."