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At least 81 killed in storm

Tropical Storm Noel takes a deadly path before heading northward.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published November 1, 2007

PIEDRA BLANCA, Dominican Republic - Tropical Storm Noel triggered mud slides and floods in the Dominican Republic and Haiti, pushing the death toll to 81 on Wednesday and forcing some parents to choose which of their children to save from the surging waters.

The storm was slowly moving away from the north coast of Cuba and was projected to skirt Florida and batter the Bahamas, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. A tropical storm watch was issued for parts of southeast Florida.

With rain still falling two days after the storm hit, rescuers were struggling to reach communities cut off by flooding on the island of Hispaniola. As they did, they found a rising toll of death and damage - at least 56 dead in the Dominican Republic and 24 in Haiti. There also was a death reported in Jamaica.

A swollen river overflowed its banks Monday night and swept away the hamlet of Piedra Blanca in the central Dominican Republic, forcing Charo Vidal to climb a tree. She watched her neighbor struggle to do the same nearby, clutching infant twins while water swept an older daughter away.

The mother, Mary De Leon, was inconsolable. "The river tore her from my hands as I held her," she said through tears.

Sagrario Diaz, a 42-year-old farmer, also struggled to hold on to his son in the surging waters but failed. "I fought, I swear I tried to save him, but I couldn't," Diaz said. "I would like to die."

A neighbor, Lucia Araujo, said she heard the boy scream: "Daddy, I don't want to drown. Help me, I don't want to drown."

Dominican President Leonel Fernandez declared a state of emergency for the next 30 days and asked for international help.

At least 58,300 Dominicans fled their homes, about 14,500 of which were damaged, said Luis Antonio Luna, head of the Emergencies Commission.

In neighboring Haiti, floods rushed through houses in the capital's Cite Soleil slum, carrying away a 3-year-old boy as relatives tried to reach him through the debris-filled water.

Two people were killed when their house collapsed in a mud slide in the hillside suburb of Petionville, and at least three others died in Jacmel, where officials said 150 people were trapped on rooftops awaiting aid.

Noel is the deadliest storm in this part of the Caribbean since Tropical Storm Jeanne hit Haiti in 2004, triggering floods and mud slides that killed an estimated 3,000 people.

For the Atlantic region as a whole, Noel is the second deadliest of the 2007 season. Hurricane Felix, a Category 5 storm, killed at least 101 people in early September, mostly along the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and Honduras.

Rough surf warnings were in effect for much of South Florida. Waves were pounding beaches in the Miami area, and residents of a waterfront condominium in South Palm Beach were urged to evacuate after pounding surf destroyed a retaining wall damaged this month in another storm.

The tropical storm watch was issued for about a 140-mile stretch of Florida from just north of the Keys to Jupiter. Wind and waves washed out beaches from the Georgia border to Miami.

At 8 p.m. Wednesday, the center of Noel was near latitude 22.9 N and longitude 78.5 W or about 230 miles south-southeast of Miami. The storm had sustained winds near 60 mph.

[Last modified November 1, 2007, 00:24:53]