GONAIVES, Haiti — Food and fresh water ran dangerously low for thousands in the flood-stricken Haitian city of Gonaives and surrounding villages Wednesday as governments and aid groups struggled to get aid to people stranded at shelters.
Shipments of food and pledges of more poured in from around the world, but the distribution of the emergency supplies was hampered by the impoverished country’s chronic insecurity and the poor and often nonexistent network of roads and other infrastructure.
“The availability of food is not an issue,” said Myrta Kaulard, a representative of the U.N. World Food Program. “Access, yes, is an issue.”
U.N. peacekeepers have had to switch to distributing food and water only at night to avoid causing a riot among desperate citizens.
The slow pace of the aid was evident in Gonaives. At least 331 people have been killed in several storms, and the toll could rise. Nine people already have died in shelters with little supplies or organization.
The crisis in Gonaives developed through an unlucky sequence of events, from a last-minute change in Tropical Storm Hanna’s course to the onslaught of Hurricane Ike just as relief supplies started to get through.
On Wednesday, United States coastal areas braced for Ike’s onslaught. The frail and elderly were put aboard buses, and authorities warned 1 million others to flee inland as Hurricane Ike steamed toward a swath of the Texas coast that includes the nation’s largest concentration of refineries and chemical plants.
Drawing energy from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the strengthening storm was expected to blow ashore early Saturday somewhere between Corpus Christi and Houston, with some forecasts saying it could become a Category 4, with winds of at least 131 mph.
Such a storm could cause a surge of 18 feet of water in Matagorda Bay and 4 to 8 feet in Galveston Bay, emergency officials warned. The surge in Galveston Bay could push floodwaters into Houston, damaging areas that include the nation’s biggest refinery and NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
