PORT-AU-PRINCE — The aerial view for Haiti's newly installed prime minister was brutal Tuesday: a storm-ravaged landscape stretching out for miles, flooded rice fields, washed-out cities and survivors battling rivers of mud.
But as Michèle Pierre-Louis surveyed the damage from a U.S. military chopper, three days after a fourth storm buffeted Haiti, she knew that the areas out of view -- remote communities hidden by mountains and cut off by impassable roads -- were likely worse off.
''It's very shocking,'' said Pierre-Louis, who officially took charge of Haiti's government Friday. "It's very hard to see that people are now living on their roofs, and that is the only way they can survive.''
From Haiti to Turks and Caicos and the Bahamas, Caribbean leaders surveying the devastation by air and land echoed a similar call: We need help.
''People are desperate for food, for drinkable water,'' Pierre-Louis said. "This is the most urgent need.''
As Pierre-Louis joined U.S. Ambassador Janet Sanderson for an overview of the affected region, U.S. military aboard a Navy hospital ship anchored off the coast of Port-au-Prince, U.N. peacekeepers and aid groups battled logistical issues to get sorely needed tarps, food and water to storm victims.
The four-storm death toll in Haiti was officially upgraded to 341.
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