Lenny threatens Dominican Republic, Haiti,
Puerto Rico
11/16/99 -- 10:02 AM
SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic (AP) - Benjamin Pena watched as his children
scooped out buckets of the filthy water flooding the living room of his ramshackle home
and uttered a prayer that Hurricane Lenny's center would pass him by. Pena, a 55-year-old
retired police lieutenant, pointed out homes already soiled by a week of rain, even as the
first dark rain bands from Lenny loomed.
``It floods here every time it rains,'' the Santo Domingo resident said. ``I'm
hoping it doesn't come.''
Lenny had lost strength by early today - its 100 mph winds slowing to 85 mph -
but it grew broader, spreading over more than 300 miles. It was headed for a direct hit on
southwest Puerto Rico and also threatened Haiti and the Dominican Republic with heavy
rain.
Puerto Rico and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands were under hurricane
warnings, while hurricane watches were declared for the southern coasts of Haiti and
Dominican Republic, which share the island of Hispaniola. Lenny passed south of Jamaica on
Monday and a hurricane watch there was canceled.
Lenny's rains were an ominous development for already rain-saturated Hispaniola.
Police reported two toddlers died in mudslides in Santo Domingo, the Dominican
capital, at dawn Monday when Lenny was still more than 500 miles away. The walls of
ravines saturated by a week of heavy rain smashed into mud houses on separate ends of the
capital. The houses collapsed, smothering two 2-year-olds who were sleeping inside.
The storm could drop up to 10 inches of rain, and its winds could whip waves up
to 16-feet high, forecasters said.
Meteorologist Ronnie Semexant of Haiti's weather bureau said people on the south
coast were being asked to evacuate to higher ground.
``The land is already saturated from heavy rains, meaning that the slightest
rain will cause flooding,'' he said. ``If the warnings are not heeded, it means certain
death for many.''
Residents in low-lying areas of Santo Domingo who experienced widespread
flooding during last year's Hurricane Georges said they had learned about Lenny by word of
mouth. They were waiting for government officials to urge them to take precautions.
Similar complaints last year - when storm shelters were opened only after
Georges struck - were blamed for the loss of dozens, if not hundreds, of lives.
``Look around here. Everyone's acting normal,'' fisherman Nelson Santos, 42,
said as he prepared to haul his wooden boat from the Ozama River, already high on its
banks.
``Why? Because there's no one to tell them to leave.''
Dominican government officials broadcast messages Monday warning that police
would forcibly remove anyone who refused to leave endangered areas, and they ordered
workers to open 1,377 shelters nationwide. But many residents of Santo Domingo's poorest,
rain-soaked slums had no radios or televisions to hear the warnings. Others said they'd
stayed in their homes to guard them from looters.
In Haiti, the poorest country on the continent where even fewer people have
radios, officials worried that word would not reach remote areas.
In Puerto Rico, the main supermarket in old town San Juan was running out of
water and hard liquor before it closed. The government consumers' association warned
shopkeepers not to boost prices on necessities.
Lenny's appearance so late in the hurricane season mirrored Tropical Storm
Gordon, which struck in November 1994 and killed at least 1,000 people in Haiti's southern
provinces, drowning them in torrential streams or burying them in mudslides. Hurricane
Georges swept over Hispaniola last year, killing more than 220 people in Haiti and 283 in
the Dominican Republic, according to official counts that were considered low.
Lenny soaked the south of Jamaica on Sunday but caused no major damage.
It is the eighth Atlantic hurricane this year, late in the season that
officially ends Nov. 30.
