Port-Au-Prince, Haiti (CNN) -- Already devastated this year by a killer earthquake and a deadly cholera outbreak, Haiti began to feel the brute force Friday of Hurricane Tomas, which could dump up to 15 inches of rain and trigger flash floods and mudslides.
The hurricane's punishing rain and wind were already being felt as the center of the storm churned offshore.
As of 11 a.m. ET, the storm's center was about 90 miles (145 kilometers) southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba, and about 140 miles (225 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Florida.
In the westernmost tip of Haiti that juts into the Caribbean Sea and is closest to the hurricane, there were reports from the town of Jeremie of destroyed houses, downed trees and flooded rivers, said Marie-Eve Bertrand, communications manager for CARE in the nation.
Tomas also was being felt in Port-au-Prince, the nation's capital.
"It's been raining heavily all night," said Leonard Doyle, the spokesman for the International Organization for Migration.
"The rain is a huge problem where we are," Doyle told CNN on Friday morning. "There's every danger that you could have flash flooding. Every danger."
Relief worker Roseann Dennery of Samaritan's Purse was near Cabaret, about 20 miles north of Port-au-Prince, on Friday morning touring camps that hold some of the 1 million people left homeless by January's 7.0-magnitude earthquake, which killed 250,000 people.
Gallery: Tomas bears down on Haiti
The few people moving from tent to tent were wrapped in sheets and cloth to provide some protection against the constant rain, she said. The ground is soaked and some low-lying areas have minor flooding.
Some people are riding the storm out in open-air community centers with supposedly sturdy roofs, she said. But many are just huddling in their tents, waiting for the wind and rain to pass. Most don't have anywhere else to go.
"A lot of them do not have families or relatives," she said.
She said her agency, an international Christian relief organization, has evacuated 30 staff members from Leogane out of fear of mud slides there.
Michael Dockrey, the director in Haiti for the International Medical Corps, also expressed his deep concern early Friday.
"Particularly," he told CNN, "with mudslides that can cut off whole communities. We have prepositioned medical supplies, tents, tarps and staff in areas that we know will be isolated."
Aid workers already were struggling to keep up with the cholera outbreak, which has killed nearly 450 people and hospitalized about 7,000. The bacterial disease causes diarrhea and vomiting that can lead to deadly dehydration within hours.
"It's obviously stretched us all real thin," Dockrey said. "We could certainly use more help ... as can all the other responders."
The hurricane will only make matters worse.
"Even if Tomas only brushes Haiti, it may exacerbate the epidemic, facilitating the spread of the disease into and throughout metropolitan Port-au-Prince, where a third of the population remains homeless and in camps," the International Organization for Migration said.
Some Haitians scurried Friday morning through the rain-pelted streets of Port-au-Prince, looking for somewhere to seek shelter, reported CNN en Espanol's Diulka Perez. They have been told to go to churches or the homes of friends and family, but there are significantly fewer churches or homes still standing after January's massive earthquake.
There is also no public transportation available to take people anywhere, Perez reported.
The problem is compounded, she said, because there's no central source of information. Haitians are having to rely on word of mouth to obtain information.
Nor are Haitians eager to leave their tent shelters because the government cannot guarantee they will have some place to return to after the storm passes.
Tomas became a Category 1 hurricane as it approached Haiti early Friday, forecasters said.
The eye of the storm passed near western Haiti Friday morning and was expected to move near or over eastern Cuba later in the day. It is forecast to be near or over the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos islands Friday night or early Saturday.
The biggest threats are mudslides and flash flooding, said CNN meteorologist Reynolds Wolf. Port-au-Prince is bounded on three sides by hills and rain runoff could cause flooding, Wolf said. The low-lying port city also borders the Caribbean Sea.
Tomas was moving north-northeast at 12 mph (19 kph), and the storm could pick up speed Friday, forecasters said. Winds from the storm remained at 85 mph (135 kph), the Hurricane Center said.
Rain associated with the storm started falling on Haiti Thursday afternoon as aid agencies scrambled to move as many people as possible into storm shelters.
Deb Ingersoll of the American Refugee Committee said her organization was helping disseminate information and encourage people to leave, but added, "to be honest, I'm not sure many of them will."
"They're very entrenched here," and many worry about losing their possessions.
"They're looking at us like we're crazy for telling them they should leave," Ingersoll said. "They don't seem to think this is an event. ... Aid workers are far more worried than they are."
Ingersoll said group members were dismantling tents in the center of camp to prevent them from becoming projectiles in the wind and encouraging residents to find family or friends who still have homes in which they can stay.
Tomas is forecast to dump 5 to 10 inches of rain on Haiti, with isolated maximum amounts of 15 inches in some areas. In addition, a storm surge could raise water levels by as much as 8 feet above normal tide levels in the warning area in areas of onshore winds, accompanied by "large and destructive waves," the hurricane center said.
Many structures that would usually be used for storm shelters -- schools and hospitals -- are no longer standing. And many of Haiti's homeless have no options.
Tomas was previously a Category 2 hurricane and then weakened to a tropical depression before re-intensifying. Forecasters predict it will weaken again Saturday.
By: the CNN Wire Staff
Via: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/11/05/tropical.weather/index.html?hpt=T1
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