With tropical storms Laura and Marco in the Caribbean, residents finish preparations

Aug. 23--As a disorganized Tropical Storm Laura churned past a shaking Puerto Rico Saturday, where residents braced for pounding rain and more aftershocks from an early morning 3.4 magnitude earthquake, residents on the islands of Hispaniola and in the Bahamas chain were told to hurry and finish storm preparations.

Laura's shift south meant that instead of passing over Puerto Rico, it brushed past south of the island. But Puerto Ricans were still bracing for as much as 8 inches of torrential rain by the time Laura moved on to Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

"Imagine if there is a tremor of 4 or more in the middle of torrential rain, where are we going to go?" said Michelle Morales, 37, a resident of Barrio La Luna in Guánica, a coastal town in picturesque southwest Puerto Rico. "The safest thing is to go outside. But there will be rain. So we can't put up a tent because the patio fills with rain."

On Saturday, President Donald Trump approved Puerto Rico's emergency declaration, which Gov. Wanda Vázquez had requested the day before. The declaration authorizes the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate all disaster relief efforts in Puerto Rico. It acknowledges that an emergency exists in the U.S. territory and orders federal assistance to help the local disaster response efforts.

While Puerto Ricans were dealing with the simultaneous threat of a tropical storm and earthquake, in Cuba the threat was simultaneous tropical systems Laura and Marco. Both tropical storms were expected to head to the Gulf of Mexico and affect the island. There were also concerns about the storms hitting the United States as hurricanes in the coming days.

Cuban authorities, however, did not seem particularly worried Saturday about Tropical Storm Laura, even if forecasts showed it crossing over most of Cuba's territory, from the east to the capital of Havana on Sunday and Monday.

In a Twitter thread, Cuban meteorologist Elier Pila Fariñas said Laura's trajectory shift to the south Saturday was not necessarily bad news for the island because the storm might weaken after passing through the mountains of Hispaniola.

Moving through the Gulf of Mexico, Tropical Storm Marco was expected to become a hurricane late Saturday. At 1 p.m. it was 50 miles off the western tip of Cuba.

That's when Cubans received their first official warning to prepare for Marco after a late 11 a.m. storm advisory was published two hours later on state media.

The advisory from Cuba's National Civil Defense warned that Marco's forecast included strong winds, heavy rain, and flooding for the Isle of Youth and Pinar del Río provinces throughout the day Saturday. It also noted that the eastern provinces would be the first affected by Laura.

If Cuban authorities appeared not overly concerned about Laura or Marco churning through the Caribbean, authorities in the Dominican Republic and Haiti were on high alert.

As Laura doused the Puerto Rican capital of San Juan with light rain and wind early Saturday, disaster officials in the Dominican Republic deployed emergency teams to the country's northern and eastern provinces and placed them under the highest of the alert warnings.

The Dominican newspaper Listin Diario reported that the Red Cross was evacuating communities along river banks vulnerable to flooding in Ciénega on Saturday.

Although by Saturday afternoon there were only scattered clouds and moderate rain hitting the north and center of the country, Laura was expected to bring accumulated rainfall between 3 inches and 6 inches starting in the east of the country and moving north. The National Office of Meteorology issued flood and mudslide alerts for several provinces and warned that waves could get as high as 10 to 12 feet along the northern coast. Isolated areas could get as much as 9 inches of rain.

A tropical storm warning was in effect with high winds, intense rain and large waves expected Saturday night and continuing through Sunday.

In Haiti, all boats, including the wooden sloops used to ferry passengers and goods between local ports, were banned until further notice.

While the trajectory had Laura arriving in the country with 40 mph winds at the Haitian-Dominican border near the town of Ouanaminthe in the northeast and exiting at the northwestern most point near the town of M"le-Saint-Nicolas, all of Haiti was forecast to feel the storm's effects.

After seeing Tropical Storm Isaias just brush the northern coastline last month, the entire country could see strong winds and heavy rains, and faced the possibility of dangerous flash floods, mudslides and landslides as well as high seas.

Speaking at a noon press briefing, Interior Minister Audain Fils Bernadel told reporters that the National Risk and Disaster Management Plan had been activated and an orange alert remained in place for the entire country, which meant that moderate to strong weather conditions could be experienced within 12 to 24 hours.

"Since this morning, the storm was already 372 miles east of Ouanaminthe and was forcefully threatening us," Bernadel said. "I can say it's the entire island that's being threatened since this morning and up until tomorrow."

A bulletin from the Office of Civil Protection also projected accumulations of rain, ranging from 4 to 8 inches in some places, with the southeast and northwest regions most at risk for the severe flooding and other dangerous conditions, beginning Saturday night and into Sunday afternoon.

"We have been dodging the major ones since 2017," Jerry Chandler, the director of the Office of Civil Protection, said about hurricanes. "This one [is] following the track of Hurricane Georges in 1998. Our concerns are for the Artibonite, Plateau Central and oddly, the southeast because the projections show heavy rains in this region overnight.

A powerful Category 4 storm, Hurricane Georges caused severe destruction as it made seven landfalls along its path while crossing the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico.

Laura isn't forecast to become a hurricane until Tuesday or Wednesday, well after it has passed Hispaniola. But in a deforested Haiti where past tropical storms have caused severe damage and death, Haitians were warned not to take any chances.

This was also the message being sent to residents of the Bahamas and the nearby Turks and Caicos. Tropical storm conditions, the Bahamas Department of Meteorology said, were expected early Sunday morning in the southeastern islands of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, while the central Bahamas could expect to feel rains and gusty winds by afternoon.

In the 3 p.m. Saturday advisory, Bahamian officials said maximum sustained winds had increased to near 50 miles per hours with higher gusts. "Some additional strengthening is possible until the center moves over Hispaniola tonight," an advisory said.

Laura's tropical storm force winds also extend outward up to 205 miles, mainly to the north of the center. Residents in both territories were told to expect localized flooding and gusty winds as the system approaches. Rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches can also be expected over the southeast Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos.

For all of the islands of the Caribbean, concerns about the storm season are heightened because of the COVID-19 pandemic. After keeping infection rates inunder control, many islands have started to see spikes in positive cases, with the Dominican Republic registering more cases than all of the Caribbean combined.

As of Saturday, the country had 90,561 positive cases registered, and 1, 554 deaths.

With the increasing numbers have come concerns over sheltering people during the pandemic, and not fueling new outbursts.

The advisory issued in Cuba on Saturday reminded all state agencies, social institutions and economic entities in the affected provinces that they must pay special attention to measures concerning the control of the coronavirus.

In a report in the state-run paper, Granma, Ramón Pardo Guerra, the army general heading the National Civil Defense Council, acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic complicated storm preparations, which now required officials to limit the capacity in evacuation centers due to social distancing and sanitary measures.

On Saturday afternoon, there were little details about the upcoming preparations, however, on state media, beyond the civil defense advisories. As Tropical Storm Marco was moving close to the island, several Cuban radio stations in Pinar del Río were broadcasting music or pre-recorded programs.

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