Hurricane Tomas floods quake-shattered Haitian town

LEOGANE, Haiti — Hurricane Tomas flooded the earthquake-shattered remains of a Haitian town on Friday, forcing families who had already lost their homes in one disaster to flee another. In the country's capital, quake refugees resisted calls to abandon flimsy tarp and tent camps.

Driving winds and storm surge battered Leogane, a seaside town west of Port-au-Prince that was near the epicenter of the Jan. 12 earthquake and was 90 percent destroyed. Dozens of families in one earthquake-refuge camp carried their belongings through thigh-high water to a taxi post on high ground, waiting out the rest of the storm under blankets and a sign that read "Welcome to Leogane."

"We got flooded out and we're just waiting for the storm to pass. There's nothing we can do," said Johnny Joseph, a 20-year-old resident.

The growing hurricane with 85 mph winds, was battering the western tip of Haiti's southern peninsula and the cities of Jeremie and Les Cayes.

At least three people died trying to cross swollen rivers, Haiti civil protection officials said. The hurricane had earlier killed at least 14 people in the eastern Caribbean.

The center of the storm was about 140 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, draping charcoal clouds over the city. Steady rain turned the streets of the capital into flowing canals that carried garbage through the city. Farther north in Gonaives, a coastal city twice inundated by recent tropical storms, police evacuated more than 200 inmates from one prison to another.

Aid workers are concerned the storm will worsen Haiti's cholera epidemic, which has killed more than 440 people and hospitalized more than 6,700 others.

In Leogane, an earthquake camp suddenly became an island as floodwater surged around it, stranding hundreds of people in their tents.

Closer to the shore, water poured into the Leogane home of Abdul Khafid, swirling around the furniture. His family grabbed its most important items — birth certificates, a radio and a computer — and headed to their mosque to spend the night.

Haiti's civil protection department had urged people living in camps for the 1.3 million Haitians made homeless by the Jan. 12 earthquake to go to the homes of friends and family.

But many ignored the advice, fearing their few possessions might be stolen or they might even be denied permission to return when the storm is over.