IRC assesses storm damage in Port-au-Prince camps

The Intenational Rescue Committee: Three International Rescue Committee (IRC) teams are assessing conditions in 13 Port-au-Prince camps today, a day after Hurricane Tomas, now downgraded to a tropical storm, battered parts of Haiti still struggling to recover from January’s earthquake. The IRC’s Susana Ferreira says the city is once again bustling – only many of the roads in Port-au-Prince now look like rivers.

First stop for her assessment team was a small site in the Tabarre district with 400 people. The camp was hit hard by wind and rain on Friday, but she said it was spared any major damage. “Residents here were as prepared as they could be for Tomas,” says Ferreira. “They reinforced their tents, as well as a network of drainage canals they had dug around their dwellings earlier this year.”

…In the wake of the storm, the IRC will be prioritizing repairs to latrines, washing stations and other sanitation facilities as needed and stepping up its cholera prevention efforts as the epidemic widens. To date the outbreak that surfaced in the rural Artibonite area north of Port-au-Prince last month has killed more than 440 people and hospitalized more than 6,700 -- and the numbers continue to inch up.

The water-borne disease causes severe vomiting and diarrhoea which can result in dehydration and death within a matter of hours….