Haiti not ready for Tropical Storm Alpha
Deadly floods and mudslides are expected
With more than five weeks left to the 2005 Hurricane season the US puppet regime in Haiti has done little - since it was installed with the help of the US Marines - to improve the civil defense infrastructure in Haiti. The largest storm to directly hit the Dominican Republic and Haiti is expected to batter the island over the next two days. Last year Tropical Storm Jeanne killed up to 6,000 Haitians and was used as a diversion to hide the massacre of hundreds of pro-democracy activists in Port au Prince while the mainstream media was focused on the tragedy in the northern departments.
NOAA forecasters are predicting that Tropical Storm Alpha will dump 4-12 inches of rain directly on the central regions of Haiti. The tropical wave has been quickly consolidating over the last 24 hours into a tropical depression. The probability is good that it will gain strength over the warm eastern Caribbean waters and become another record-setting storm - for this season - and take on the name "Alpha" later today.
The region is already saturated with the heavy rains brought by the outer bands of Hurricane Wilma when it was a tropical storm centered hundreds of miles away, south of Jamaica. While the reports from Wilma's impact on the Yucatan Peninsula are not yet known, 13 of the 14 reported deaths in that storm, so far, were in Haiti.
Echoing the misplaced priorities of the Bush Administration that resulted in the Hurricane Katrina tragedy in New Orleans, USAID priorities in Haiti put the right-wing political agenda over the USAID Hurricane Preparedness program that is still on the back burner one year later. A recent USAID report has shown that it is patting itself on the back for funding anti-Lavalas programs ahead of the sham elections that they hope to inflict on the People of Haiti. One of the "Play for Peace" intervention programs let to a massacre in front of 5,000 soccer fans.
NOAA Forecasters are predicting that the "Alpha" storm system is likely to take a northeasterly turn ahead of Hurricane Wilma and "Tropical Storm Warnings" have been issued by the governments in the Bahamas. There is significant discussion contrary to the computer models of that forecast that point to lower level troughs forming over Haiti and the Gulf that could cause Alpha to actually pause over Haiti - dumping even more rain than expected - before merging with Wilma.
The steering currents in the Caribbean could take this system more towards Jamaica, Cuba and Western Haiti later today, even though most forecasters are predicting that the large Mid-Atlantic trough will predominate over the fluctuating airstreams. The tropical depression is moving west-northwest at a comparatively quick 15 mph while "Category 3" Hurricane Wilma is almost stationary over the storm-battered Yucatan region.
