CAYMAN ISLANDS (12 Sep 2004) -- Hurricane Ivan, one of the most powerful storms the Caribbean has ever seen, began to lash the tiny Cayman Islands on Sunday after gutting homes and washing away roads in Jamaica and killing 44 people throughout the Caribbean. Dubbed a "Super-hurricane" by Caribbean disaster officials, the rare, top-intensity Category 5 storm was bringing catastrophic 165-mph winds and a towering storm surge to the Caymans, a wealthy British territory of 45,000 people. "From the sound of things outside ..., it's pretty active," said Joan Scott-Campbell of the Cayman's hurricane committee as she hunkered down in a shuttered emergency center while rising winds snapped trees and brought down power lines outside. Ivan devastated the spice island of Grenada as it began its destructive path through the Caribbean on Tuesday, then spared Jamaica and its 2.7 million people the worst of its fury on Saturday when it jigged westward at the last minute. But its slight change in track took the center of the ferocious storm directly toward Grand Cayman, the largest of the three islands in the Caymans offshore financial center, and on a heading for western Cuba and possibly Florida. A Florida landfall would make it the third big hurricane to hit the state in a month, after Charley and Frances, which together caused $9.4 billion to $11.4 billion in insured damages. Ivan was the sixth-strongest storm recorded in the Atlantic basin, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center (news - web sites), and almost rivaled the destructive power of Hurricane Mitch, which killed 10,000 people in Central America in 1998. It ripped off roofs across Jamaica and torrential rains triggered mudslides, washing out roads. The storm brought trees and poles crashing down in the capital, Kingston, where ravines overflowed and flooded streets. Near Kingston airport at Harbour View, a giant storm surge gutted a row of middle-class beachfront homes and dumped beach sand on roads. Aid agencies and officials said they were still trying to find out what had happened in the southeastern parish of St. Thomas, one of the hardest-hit areas, and St. Elizabeth in the southwest, and hoped to clear blocked roads Sunday. Jamaica's death toll reached 16, and police made 28 arrests as they battled looting that erupted during the storm. Two men were shot dead by police in gunfights when officers tried to retrieve stolen goods. CATASTROPHIC CONDITIONS In the Cayman Islands, storm shelters filled up as the authorities urged coastal dwellers to flee battering waves and a 15-foot (five-meter) storm surge. | | A man walks near a house that was destroyed by Hurricane Ivan, in Kingston, Jamaica, September 11, 2004. Ivan ripped Jamaica with powerful winds, torrential rains and huge waves on Saturday, tearing away houses and washing out roads before heading toward the tiny Cayman Islands and Cuba. (Reuters/Daniel Aguilar) "We are looking at potentially catastrophic conditions," said James Ryan, chairman of the Caymans hurricane committee. The authorities declared a state of emergency and forecast that the worst of the winds would begin to be felt later on Sunday morning. At 2 a.m., Ivan's center was 90 miles southeast of Grand Cayman at latitude 18.4 north and longitude 80.4 west, the hurricane center said. It was expected to drift west-northwest and at about 8 mph and hurricane-force winds extended for 70 miles from the center. Ivan was forecast to hit Cuba by Monday, and approach Florida's west coast, threatening areas struck last month by Hurricane Charley, by Tuesday. Florida evacuated tourists and 80,000 residents from the 100-mile island chain of the Florida Keys. Cuba evacuated 200,000 people in the western half of the island. It appeared the storm would hit key tobacco-growing areas west of Havana and not the capital itself, where nervous residents jammed shops to buy food and water and candles. So far, the worst-hit Caribbean island appeared to be Grenada. The Red Cross estimated 60,000 of Grenada's 90,000 people were left homeless. The island has been without power or water and under a nighttime curfew since Ivan struck on Tuesday. The State Department chartered flights to evacuate 1,400 stranded Americans, many of them medical students. The Caribbean Disaster Emergency Response Agency, which dubbed Ivan a "Super-hurricane," said international organizations were rushing to bring aid to the country. In addition to 19 confirmed deaths in Grenada and 16 in Jamaica, four people died in Venezuela, four in the Dominican Republic and one in Tobago. SOURCE - Reuters |
