T.S. Fay Reports - Dominican Rebublic - Cruise Line Fans: Cruise Forum, Reviews and Chat From Real Cruisers

canarymoon · 08-17-2008, 07:31 AM

Sadly, the news from Hispanola - Haiti and the Dominican Republic - is not good. Four lives were lost there to a 'mere tropical storm.'

From the AP:

(08-17) 04:00 PDT Port-au-Prince, Haiti -- Flooding from Tropical Storm Fay killed four people in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and authorities warned Saturday that the storm could reach hurricane strength as it barrels toward Cuba.

. . . A man died Saturday in Haiti while trying to cross a river in Leogane, south of Port-au-Prince

. . . In neighboring Dominican Republic, a 34-year-old woman drowned when a family tried to cross a swollen river in a car, civil defense agency Director Luis Luna Paulino said. The bodies of her missing 13-year-old niece and 5-year-old nephew were found Saturday afternoon, but her husband swam to saf

canarymoon · 08-17-2008, 07:48 AM

Rice fields in the Artibonite Valley, Haiti's most fertile region, were flooded.

Heavy winds destroyed banana crops.

Haiti has struggled to cope with a food crisis that sparked deadly riots in April.

ON a more positive note, the airport has now re-opened.

canarymoon · 08-19-2008, 12:42 AM

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — Two babies were killed when a river surging with rain from Tropical Storm Fay toppled their overcrowded bus, a U.N. official said Monday, raising the storm's Caribbean death toll to at least 14.

U.N. peacekeepers arrived at the scene and confirmed that 41 passengers made it out safely, contrary to earlier reports that at least 30 passengers were feared dead, said Fred Blaise, a spokesman for the United Nations police force in Haiti.

Blaise told The Associated Press that the peacekeepers saw the bodies of the two infants who died when their bus tried to cross the swollen Riviere Glace, as well as that of a man who drowned separately in the same river