Impact
Although the storm's circulation technically made landfall near Barahona in the Dominican Republic, the bulk of its impact occurred in the country's poorer neighbor, Haiti. When Alpha arrived on Hispaniola it brought between 4 inches (101 mm) and 7.9 in (201 mm) of rain which triggered floods and landslides. The road between Port-au-Prince and the Haiti's Sud Department was closed at Grand-Goâve in the Ouest Department. In the coastal city of Léogâne near Port-au-Prince, bridges were closed to cars but not to pedestrians. Surging rivers east of Marigot and west of Jacmel closed roads in that region, and the main road between Jérémie and Les Cayes was also closed. Elsewhere in the country, landslides temporarily blocked several other major roads. Gonâve Island, which had been suffering a brutal drought, was stricken by floods which overwhelmed and washed away pipes of the water draining system in Nan Baré.
Damages in Haiti were mostly confined to the Ouest, Sud-Est, and Grand'Anse departments. In Haiti, 17 people died. Two drowned when a river overflowed in Grande Anse and two more died after being electrocuted during flooding, one in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Carrefour and the other in the southern town of Jacmel. The rest of the deaths were the results of landslides and flooding in various areas in the country. Across the country, 243 houses were destroyed, and 191 more were damaged.
Nine people were killed in the Dominican Republic: two fishermen went missing at sea during the storm and the others were swept away by flood waters when rivers burst their banks in Guaricanos and Puerto Plata. Otherwise, the damage in the Dominican Republic was minimal.
The Haitian government did not request international assistance, although The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Haitian Red-Cross, which were already working in Haiti, took on some supporting roles. In response to local flooding, the Jacmel Regional branch of the Red Cross distributed an additional 400 water purification tablets, 11 boxes of high-energy biscuits, and 10 boxes of body soap.
Read more about this topic: Tropical Storm Alpha (2005)
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