Hurricane Lenny has moved further east prior to its expected turning to the northeast. This is good news for the DR, as it means it could pass further south, thus bringing less rain and winds. On Monday afternoon and evening, city residents packed supermarkets as part of preparations for the hurricane. The government began to implement its hurricane emergency plan, with General José de los Santos Sánchez, chief of the Civil Defense, as the leading spokesman for the plan. As a precaution, school was called off in the south and eastern provinces where the rainstorms may be felt. The dam reservoir levels are being lowered to make way for the 100-300 millimeters of rain that is expected. After many were caught unprepared for Georges in September 1998, Dominicans are more prone to take hurricane warnings more seriously. The Listín Diario showed photographs of Mesopotamia residents moving their belongings, just in case. That area was buried by mudslides in the aftermath of Georges. General de los Santos said that the 1,400 refugee centers in the DR will not be opened until an alert bulletin or orange alert is issued by the Weather Department. It only rained for about an hour on Monday evening, and at mid-day it was barely raining, although there were cloudy skies in Santo Domingo. Now, at most, more rains are expected, with their consequences. Heavy rains in the city of Santo Domingo and the rest of the DR have saturated the ground after almost two weeks of afternoon rains. Hoy newspaper reports that a two-year old girl was buried by a mudslide in the low-income area of Los Minas in Santo Domingo. Another two-year old died when one of the walls of her block house in the Herrera low income area in Santo Domingo fell on her as a result of another mudslide. These rains have nothing to do with the hurricane, which is still too far from the DR. At 10 am AST, the center of the hurricane was located near latitude 15.3 north, longitude 60.8 west. It continues to move toward the east at near 26 km/hr, 16 mph. It is moving east at about 24 km/hr (15 mph) and a gradual turn to the northeast is expected in the next 12-24 hours. The turn to the northeast should be monitored closely. Maximum sustained winds are near 160 km/hr (100 mph). Some strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours, but by then it will be past the Dominican Republic. Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 230 kms or 145 miles, so if it maintains its present course, these will not affect the DR. The hurricane is about 400 kms. south of the city of Santo Domingo. The US National Hurricane Center has advised that a tropical storm warning remains in effect for the south coast of the Dominican Republic. The Center will issue an intermediate advisory at 2 pm AST followed by the next complete advisory at 5 pm AST. Note that Intellicast track chart has removed the huricane watch and tropical storm warning around the DR. See http://www.intellicast.com/Tropical/World/UnitedStates/HurTrack1/ To further monitor the hurricane, some other good links with information (news stories) are: http://www.weather.com/weather_center/trop_season/ http://www.usatoday.com/weather/huricane/images/atlantic_track_lenny.htm http://www.gopbi.com/weather/storm/atlantic/lenny.html http://www4.nlmoc.navy.mil/data/atcf/al161999.gif http://www.wunderground.com/tropical/tracking/at199916.html
