Tropical Storm Hanna drenched flood-prone Haiti on Wednesday, adding to the misery of a Caribbean country that has lost more than 100 lives to mudslides and flooding in the past two weeks. Authorities in the Western Hemisphere's poorest country on Wednesday reported two more deaths caused by Hanna, raising the toll from the latest storm to 23. Floodwaters hit a hospital in the Les Cayes area, forcing nurses to move patients to higher floors. At least 5,000 people in the area remained in shelters, authorities said. High water prevented U.N. soldiers from reaching the western city of Gonalves, where the rise of muddy water drove people to seek refuge on rooftops Tuesday. A convoy carrying Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis had to abandon efforts to reach Gonalves when one of the cars was nearly swept away, police said. Haiti is particularly vulnerable to devastating floods because of its steep hillsides that have been deforested to make charcoal for fuel. Early Wednesday, Hanna was centered 65 kilometers north of the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with maximum sustained winds of near 95 kilometers per hour (kph), the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said. The storm was moving eastward at 8 kph, but it was expected to change course to the northwest later Wednesday and move near the central Bahamas by Thursday, when it could regain hurricane force. Hanna is then expected to start climbing along the U.S. east coast by the weekend, the NHC said, with some chance it could bring tropical storm-force winds to New York City. Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Ike was moving westward across the Atlantic Ocean with top winds near 100 kph, and it was projected to approach the Bahamas by Sunday as a hurricane. Following Ike was Tropical Storm Josephine with winds near 95 kph. Forecasters expect Josephine to continue strengthening Wednesday.
