Hurricane Ivan threatens Cuba

HURRICANE Ivan, one of the fiercest Atlantic storms recorded, grew even more powerful and headed toward Cuba yesterday after pummelling the Cayman Islands, Jamaica and Grenada, killing at least 65 on a route that could take it to the US coast.

The monster strengthened to near 160mph, tore off roofs and sent sea water surging over the Caymans, a low-lying British territory and offshore finance centre and home to 45,000.

Now a rare and deadly Category 5 hurricane, Ivan was expected to pass near the far west of Cuba overnight, forecasters said. They warned of a 20-foot to 25-foot storm surge of seawater in Cuba, east of Ivan’s centre, if it were to make landfall in western Cuba.

Cuba evacuated some 1.3 million people ahead of the storm, including 200,000 in western Pinar del Rio province, where strong winds and heavy rainfall lashed the city of Pinar del Rio yesterday, uprooting trees and knocking down traffic lights.

“Luckily we have been saved from the eye of the hurricane, but the province will be seriously hit, with great damage to housing and the tobacco industry,” said Luis Alberto Diaz, a government engineer.

The province, source of the tobacco for Cuban cigars, was hit by hurricanes Isidore and Lili in 2002, which caused $40 million in damage to the industry.

World oil prices climbed as companies operating in the US Gulf of Mexico, home to about a quarter of US oil and gas output, braced for output disruptions. Shell Oil Co said on Sunday it had shut offshore production on oil and gas wells in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and evacuated workers.

Authorities in the Florida Keys lifted an evacuation order, allowing residents to return to the 100-mile island chain that had appeared to be in the storm’s path last week. A tropical storm alert remained in effect for the islands.

On Grand Cayman, the largest of the three Cayman Islands, homes and businesses were flooded, an airport runway was submerged and roofs were torn off when Ivan roared past on Sunday.

All three islands were without electricity and flood waters rushed through houses and apartment buildings, Cayman Net News, an online news service, reported.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the Caymans.

While damage was extensive on Jamaica, the island of 2.7 million people appeared to have escaped the havoc wrought on Tuesday on the tiny spice island of Grenada, where 90% of buildings were flattened or badly damaged.

Ivan was headed for western Cuba or Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula yesterday and then toward the US, where it could inflict a third hurricane strike on Florida within a month or curve west toward New Orleans.