Ivan grows to Category 5 monster
'It's a horizontal blizzard. The air is just foam.'
JAY EHRHART
ASSOCIATED PRESS
GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands - Hurricane Ivan pummelled the Cayman Islands with floodwaters that swamped homes and fierce winds that ripped off roofs, then strengthened to an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm as it headed for western Cuba today.
The slow-moving hurricane, one of the strongest on record to hit the region, killed at least 65 people across the Caribbean before reaching the Caymans and threatens millions more in its projected path.
Parts of low-lying Grand Cayman, the largest island in the territory of 45,000 people, were swamped under up to 2.4 metres of water today. Some residents stood on rooftops of flooded homes.
A car floated by the second storey of one building, and a resident called Radio Cayman to report seeing two bodies floating off the beach. Police said they could not confirm the report.
Ivan intensified overnight, with winds of 257 kilometres an hour, just over the threshold of 251 km/h for a Category 5 storm, and headed for western Cuba, threatening floods in Pinar del Rio province. The province is Cuba's tobacco growing centre and the biggest source of leaves for its famed cigar industry.
About 1.3 million Cubans have been evacuated from their homes, most taking refuge in the sturdier houses of relatives, co-workers or neighbours.
Ivan — at Category 5, the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson scale and capable of catastrophic damage — was projected to pass near or over Cuba's western end by this afternoon or evening.
Although Cubans were relieved by reports that the hurricane likely would not make a direct hit, Havana's head meteorologist, Jose Rubiera, said Ivan was still threatening western parts of the island with strong winds and torrential rains.
"No one should think that it is gone, that we are safe — that is not true," he said.
Cuba's Isla de Juventud, or Isle of Youth, southwest of the main island, began experiencing 80 km/h winds and intermittent rain early today, the official Prensa Latina news service said.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm's centre might miss the tip of Cuba and could move near the northeastern Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula in the next 24 hours.
At 8 a.m. today, Ivan's eye was about 175 kilometres south-southeast of the western tip of Cuba. Hurricane-force winds extended 170 kilometres from the centre and tropical storm-force winds another 320 kilometres. Ivan was moving west-northwest near 15 km/h and a turn northwest was expected.
Ivan was forecast to move into the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, nearing parts of Florida's west coast still recovering from hurricane Charley and threatening to make landfall in the Florida panhandle, Mississippi or Louisiana.
"Right now, we're looking anywhere from the Florida panhandle to Louisiana," said Jennifer Pralgo, a meteorologist at the hurricane centre. "We do feel that the southern portion of Florida will be in the clear on this."
Ivan has killed at least 15 people in Jamaica, 39 in Grenada, five in Venezuela, four in the Dominican Republic, one in Tobago and one, a Canadian woman, in Barbados.
The eye of the storm passed just south of Grand Cayman, said Rafael Mojica, a hurricane centre meteorologist.
Though Ivan's centre didn't directly make landfall in the three-island chain, the storm lashed the wealthy British territory all day Sunday with 240 km/h winds, and the rains kept coming through the night.
"It's as bad as it can possibly get," Justin Uzzell, 35, said by telephone Sunday from his fifth-floor refuge in an office building on Grand Cayman. "It's a horizontal blizzard. The air is just foam."
An estimated one-quarter to one half of the 15,000 homes on the island suffered some damage said Donnie Ebanks, deputy chairman of the British territory's National Hurricane Committee.
Patchy cell phone service was restored as dawn broke in the Caymans, a popular scuba diving destination and banking centre. Residents emerged to see what the storm had done.
"We know there is damage and it is severe," said Wes Emanuel of the Cayman Islands' Government Information Service.
The airport runway was flooded and windows shattered in the control tower, Ebanks said. The winds uprooted trees as tall as three stories.
Mexico issued a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning for the northeastern Yucatan, and hundreds abandoned fishing settlements on the nearby island of Holbox. The resort city of Cancun opened shelters and closed beaches.
In Havana, traffic was light Sunday as most took shelter. Dozens of families in western Cuba's coastal La Coloma area bundled up clothes, medicine, furniture and television sets before boarding buses to find shelter.
"I feel sad leaving my house on its own," said Ricardo Hernandez, 44, a fisherman. "But I have to protect myself and save the lives of my family."
The last Category 5 storm to make landfall in the Caribbean was hurricane David, which killed more than 1,000 people and devastated the Dominican Republic in 1979, Mojica said.
Source: Toronto Star
