The long-term forecast track shows it heading toward Florida by Tuesday morning.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Hurricane Elsa fell back to tropical storm force as it brushed past Haiti and the Dominican Republic on Saturday and threatened to unleash flooding and landslides before taking aim at Cuba and Florida. The storm was centered about 255 miles east of Kingston, Jamaica, and was moving west-northwest at 29 mph. It had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph as the tropical storm, which had been a Category 1 hurricane earlier on Saturday, weakened during its approach to Hispaniola and Cuba, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The long-term forecast track showed it heading toward Florida as a tropical storm by Tuesday morning, but some models would carry it into the Gulf or up the Atlantic Coast. In Haiti, authorities used social media to alert people about the storm and urged them to evacuate if they lived near water or mountain flanks. “The whole country is threatened,” the Civil Protection Agency said in a statement. “Make every effort to escape before it’s too late.” Haiti is especially vulnerable to floods and landslides because of widespread erosion and deforestation. In addition, a recent spike in gang violence has forced thousands of people to flee from their homes, so the civil protection agency is running low on basic items including food and water, director Jerry Chandler told The Associated Press. “It’s been three weeks that we’ve been supporting families who are running away from gang violence,” he said.
