GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands (13 Sep 2004) -- Cayman Islanders clambered onto rooftops and kitchen tables to escape surging waters as Hurricane Ivan battered the British territory with roaring winds and huge seas on Sunday and took aim at Cuba and the United States. A monster storm bearing 160-mph winds, Ivan tore off roofs, produced waves the size of two-story buildings and submerged an airport runway as it roared past Grand Cayman -- the largest of the three islands that make up the wealthy offshore finance center of 45,000 people. Panicked residents climbed on kitchen counters to escape a waist-high storm surge that swept at least half a mile inland. Some said the winds sounded like a locomotive. Ham radio operators reported that people were standing on rooftops to escape the water, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. Telephone communications with the low-lying Caymans were abruptly cut off on Sunday afternoon. "They pretty much got the worst of it," said Michael Formosa, a meteorologist at the hurricane center. On one of the three islands, tiny Cayman Brac, residents sought shelter in caves. There were no immediate reports of casualties in the Caymans but Ivan killed 19 people in Jamaica -- the latest victim a woman in a wheel chair who could not escape a fire sparked by a faulty generator -- and caused severe flooding and mudslides when it brushed past on Friday night and Saturday. While damage was extensive, the island of 2.7 million people appeared to have been spared the total havoc wrought Tuesday on Grenada, where the government said 19 people also died after 90 percent of the tiny spice island's buildings were damaged or destroyed. 47 DEAD In all, Ivan's Caribbean rampage has killed 47 people. Ivan was headed for tobacco-growing regions of western Cuba on Monday and then toward the United States, where it could inflict a third hurricane strike on Florida within a month or curve further west toward the New Orleans area. At least 40 roads in Jamaica were blocked by fallen trees, utility poles, flooding or landslides, and food was beginning to run short in shelters housing 12,000 people. A southeastern parish suffered tremendous damage but could not be reached. Looting, which erupted as the storm hit, appeared under control, Jamaica's emergency management service said. Cuba evacuated 1.3 million people -- more than a tenth of its population -- and prepared for torrential rains of 12 inches. But Ivan appeared set to miss the capital Havana and spare its 2 million people. "People are playing dominoes in the street on my block, and drinking rum," a central Havana resident said. | | Instead, the most powerful hurricane to threaten Cuba in living memory could ravage tobacco sheds in Pinar del Rio. "We fear Ivan will demolish everything. Luckily we have not planted yet," said Carlos Robaina, son of legendary Cuban tobacco grower Alejandro Robaina. RARE CATEGORY 5 On Saturday, Ivan's top sustained winds were reported at 165 mph, making it the sixth-strongest Atlantic basin storm ever recorded, the National Hurricane Center said. It was downgraded to Category 4 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as it began to pound the Caymans but strengthened again to a rare Category 5 on Sunday night. Ivan's center was about 175 miles southeast of the western tip of Cuba at latitude 19.7 north and longitude 83.2 west and was moving west-northwest at 9 mph at 11 p.m. EDT, the center said. Forecasters cannot say exactly where Ivan might hit the U.S. coast, but it appeared headed for Florida's northwestern Panhandle, or further along the Gulf Coast. Florida was battered by Hurricane Charley on Aug. 13 and hit again by Hurricane Frances a week ago. The two storms caused up to $11.4 billion in insured damages. Florida evacuated tourists and 80,000 residents from the 100-mile Florida Keys island chain and all up the southwest coast residents who had not already boarded up their homes stocked up on plywood and power generators. Mexico's Yucatan peninsula also faced possible high winds, and authorities were evacuating up to 12,000 residents and tourists from Isla Mujeres, 8 miles from Cancun. Aid was pouring into devastated Grenada, where two-thirds of the 90,000 population was homeless. In addition to the deaths in Grenada and Jamaica, four people died in Venezuela, four in the Dominican Republic and one in Tobago. SOURCE - Reuters |
