Tropical Storm Grace Heads Toward Earthquake-Ravaged Haiti

As people in Haiti desperately search for survivors from a devastating earthquake, the threat of yet another natural disaster looms over the island.

Downgraded from a tropical storm, Tropical Depression Grace is projected to pass over Haiti late Monday or early Tuesday, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm could dump four to eight inches of rain, with isolated totals up to 15 inches, the center said, adding that heavy rainfall could lead to flooding and potential mudslides.

The storm was on a path to go directly over the Dominican Republic, Haiti and then Cuba before heading north toward the Gulf Coast of the United States.Forecasters initially said it might spare the peninsula hardest hit by the earthquake but the storm changed direction and now threatens the entire country of Haiti. Many are still trapped in the rubble of collapsed buildings, and survivors of the earthquake lack shelter and even food and water.

The storm formed in the eastern Caribbean on Saturday morning, as the earthquake rocked Haiti’s western peninsula. It is the seventh named storm of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season and follows several days of floods and power outages unleashed this week by Tropical Storm Fred, which weakened to a tropical depression.