SANTO DOMINGO/PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – At least one man died as Tropical Storm Franklin passed over the Dominican Republic, flooding parts of the capital and damaging infrastructure, though initial reports showed communities across the Caribbean island of Hispaniola emerged relatively unscathed.
Franklin, which brought stormy winds and rainfall across the Dominican Republic and neighboring Haiti, is forecast to gather strength over the Atlantic Ocean and could near hurricane force this weekend.
At 5 p.m. local time (2100 GMT), the storm was just passing off Puerto Plata on the Dominican Republic’s northern coast, moving north-northeast into the Atlantic at 13 miles per hour (20 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).
“Franklin could be near hurricane strength over the southwestern Atlantic by Saturday,” the NHC said, saying it expected the storm to gradually strengthen from its current maximum sustained winds near 40 mph.
The head of the Dominican COE emergency services a man had been found dead earlier on Wednesday in San Cristobal province, after trying to swim through floodwaters.
In a briefing with COE, Dominican President Luis Abinader said the government would attend to communities whose infrastructure was damaged by the storm and that schools and businesses would resume on Thursday.
“Business will return to normal starting tomorrow,” he said.
A preliminary COE report found that no homes had been destroyed by the storm though over 500 had been damaged and more than 300 people had moved to temporary shelters.
The storm also cut off access to six Dominican communities and damaged roads, water infrastructure and the electrical grid, emergency services said.
In Haiti, local media said the country’s Hydro-Meteorological Unit (UHM) had lifted its yellow alert as the storm passed over, though rains were still forecast in parts on the country including the Grand’Anse and Sud departments.
The United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) on Tuesday said it had prepared response teams to supply vulnerable communities. Some 200,000 people are estimated to be displaced in Haiti due to an extended conflict with armed gangs.
(Reporting by Paul Mathiasen in Santo Domingo, Harold Isaac in Port-au-Prince, Sarah Morland in Mexico City, Harshit Verma and Ananya Bajpai in Bengaluru; Editing by Lincoln Feast)
