Ferocious Ivan slams the Cayman Islands

HURRICANE IVAN battered the Cayman Islands with ferocious 150-mph (240-kph) winds yesterday, flooding homes, ripping off roofs and toppling trees three stories tall as its powerful eye thundered past just offshore. Ivan has killed at least 60 people as it has torn a path of destruction across the Caribbean, and was headed next for a direct hit on western Cuba and the southeastern United States. The hurricane, which grew to the most powerful Category Five scale with 165 mph (265 kph) winds Saturday, lost some strength before tearing into the wealthy island chain, a popular scuba diving destination and banking centre that benefits from strict building codes. “It’s as bad as it can possibly get,” Justin Uzzell, 35, said by telephone from his fifth-floor refuge in a Grand Cayman office building. “It’s a horizontal blizzard,” he said, “The air is just foam.” Emergency officials said residents from all parts of the island reported roofs blown off and flooded homes as Ivan’s shrieking winds and driving rain lashed Grand Cayman, the largest of three islands that comprise the British territory of 45,000 people.

While it was nearly a direct hit on Grand Cayman, Ivan’s powerful eye did not make landfall, instead passing over water just south of the island, said Rafael Mojica, a meteorologist at the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami. The airport runway was flooded and trees were wrenched from their roots, including a giant Cayman mahogany next to the government headquarters in downtown George Town. Radio Cayman went off the air, then resumed broadcasts. Though there were no immediate reports of injuries in the Cayman Islands, the death toll elsewhere rose as hospital officials in Jamaica reported four more deaths, for a total of 15 there. At least 34 were killed in Grenada, where the hurricane left widespread destruction. Scattered deaths occurred on other islands and in Venezuela. Some people were stranded in flooded homes in the north-central parish of St Anne near Ocho Rios, and emergency officials said they were trying to get a helicopter to evacuate people because roads were impassible.

In the seaside town of Port Royal, residents began sweeping out mounds of sand, dead tree branches and coconut-sized rocks kicked up by 20-foot (6-metre) waves. In Cuba, President Fidel Castro said his government had mobilised to save lives and property. “This country is prepared to face this hurricane,” Castro said on Saturday night. Ivan is the most powerful storm to threaten the country since the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power. The threatened area includes densely populated Havana, where traffic was light Sunday morning as most took shelter. About 800,000 people across the island of 11.2 million had been evacuated by Sunday morning, with most seeking refuge with relatives, the official Prensa Latina news agency reported. Jamaica, an island of 2.6 million, was saved from a direct hit when the hurricane unexpectedly wobbled and lurched to the west Saturday, but it still suffered heavy damage as 25-foot (7.5 metre) waves crashed onto beachfronts, destroying homes and toppling trees. Towering waves and heavy wind damaged many hotels in the western resort town of Negril, toppling trees and utility poles, police Constable Ricardo Scott said.

RJR Radio reported waves there 60 feet (18 metres) high, though that couldn’t immediately be confirmed. “Whatever our religion, faith or persuasions may be, we must give thanks,” Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson told the nation. The international airport in the northern resort town reopened yesterday and flights would resume, said Steve Bennett, spokesman for Air Jamaica. However, he said, Kingston’s airport remained closed because the Palisadoes Highway leading to it was blocked by dunes of sand up to five feet (1.5 metres) high. Bulldozers were clearing the sand yesterday. Jamaican police killed two alleged looters and four officers were wounded in shootouts with armed looters, officials said. Ivan also killed five people in Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in Barbados, and four children in the Dominican Republic. The fourth major hurricane of the Atlantic season, Ivan damaged dozens of homes in Barbados, St Lucia and St Vincent last Tuesday before making a direct hit on Grenada, which was left a wasteland of flattened houses. It also destroying nearly 100 houses and damaged hundreds more in impoverished Haiti.