It could be one of the heaviest hurricane seasons ever. At the weekend, two strong storms hit the Caribbean and caused floods. Both hurricane "Marco" and tropical storm "Laura" are moving towards the south coast of the USA.
Washington / Port-au-Prince / Santo Domingo (dpa) - The tropical cyclone "Marco" reached the strength of a hurricane on its way towards the southern US coast over the Gulf of Mexico.
The storm system brings winds with a speed of up to 120 kilometers per hour and even stronger gusts, said the National Hurricane Center (NHC) on Sunday. That corresponds to a hurricane of the lowest level one. Meanwhile, tropical storm "Laura" caused flooding in the Caribbean.
The storm moved at a speed of a good 20 kilometers per hour on the US coast in the state of Louisiana, where it should hit land on Monday evening (local time). "Life-threatening" storm surges, floods and extremely dangerous gusts of wind are to be expected in the affected areas, as the weather department warned. The area around the city of New Orleans, which was badly hit by the strong hurricane "Katrina" 15 years ago, could also be affected. The NHC's storm surge warning applied to all of Louisiana and the states of Mississippi and Alabama to the east.
"Marco" is supposed to weaken again "quickly" overland on Tuesday and move on in a westerly direction to Texas, as the weather department said. In parts of Mexico, as a tropical storm, "Marco" brought heavy rain and strong winds at the weekend.
In the Caribbean, meanwhile, the somewhat weaker tropical storm "Laura" continued to move towards the Gulf of Mexico and the US coast. It moved over the Dominican Republic and Haiti with winds of up to 85 kilometers per hour on Sunday and caused heavy rain and floods. Both states are on the island of Hispaniola.
In Haiti, a ten-year-old girl died when a tree fell on a house in the southeastern coastal town of Anse-à-Pitres, the Caribbean state's civil protection agency announced. A dam on the eastern Péligre Lake overflowed. The residents of the surrounding areas were asked to get to safety.
Trees and power lines fell over in the Dominican Republic. According to a report in the Listin Diario newspaper, more than a million people were without electricity. TV pictures showed rescue workers trying to free a woman and her child from the rubble of their collapsed house in the capital Santo Domingo.
Puerto Rico also got heavy rain because of "Laura". The storm was forecast to pass close to Cuba and arrive in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday. The Cuban government asked the administrations in the east of the country to prepare for an emergency. On Tuesday, according to the NHC, "Laura" could also become a hurricane over the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Tropical storms are called hurricanes in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific. In the Atlantic, the hurricane season - from June to November - could be one of the most violent this year, according to the US climate agency NOAA.
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Video of rescue attempt in Santo Domingo
Storm surge warning graphic for the US south coast, English