Hurricane Ivan heads for US

Hurricane Ivan slammed into Cuba’s sparsely populated western tip with the worst of its 160mph (257kph) eyewall, strengthened to a storm of catastrophic strength after it smashed giant waves on to Grand Cayman island and readied to attack the Gulf of Mexico and US oil interests.

Ivan, one of the fiercest storms ever recorded in the region, smashed away part of a hotel on Cayman’s famed Seven Mile Beach.

The storm has killed at least 68 people in seven islands or countries in the Caribbean, devastated Grenada and badly battered Negril resort in Jamaica.

Millions more people are threatened.

Last night, it pounded the heartland of Cuba’s famed cigar industry – fields where much of the tobacco is grown to produce the 150 million Cuban cigars worth €195.5m a year. Sugar, the lead export, was expected to be spared since most cane is grown in the east.

There were no immediate reports of deaths, injuries or serious damage.

Dan Brown, a meteorologist at the US Hurricane Center in Miami, said there were reports of wind gusts up to 162mph (230kph) battering Cuba’s western provincial capital of Pinar del Rio.

Trees and power lines were down there, ham radio operators reported, and heavy flooding was considered likely.

More than 1.3 million of Cuba’s 11.2 million people were evacuated in the western region still recovering from Hurricane Charley. All national and international airports were closed until Wednesday.

Whatever the damage, Cuban President Fidel Castro said he would not accept any aid from the United States. “We won’t accept a penny from them,” the Cuban leader said yesterday on state television.

“The hurricane before this they offered 50,000 US dollars,” he said of a US government offer after Charley hit. “Even if they offered all that was necessary – 100 million US dollars, 200 million US dollars, we would not accept.”

Ivan, a monstrously powerful and sprawling storm, attacked two islands simultaneously on Monday: its western fringe drenched fields in Cuba as waves 20ft (6m) tall slammed the sea wall at the port in George Town, Grand Cayman.

At 11pm the storm was centred about 40 miles (60 kilometres) west-northwest of the western tip of Cuba. it was moving toward the northwest near 9mph. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 100 miles (160 kilometres) and tropical storm-force winds another 200 miles (325 kilometres).

The Hurricane Center warned of storm surges likely to flood 25 feet above normal tide levels and “large and battering waves” that could cause life-threatening land and mudslides.

Cuba’s tobacco crop was safe, according to top grower Alejandro Robaina. Planting season doesn’t begin until next month and remnants of January’s harvest are protected in curing houses.

“I think we are going to escape the worst of it,” Robaina said.

But oil prices shot up nearly 1.50 US dollars a barrel yesterday as oil and natural gas producers evacuated rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. Shell Oil said it was evacuating 750 workers.

Ivan has killed at least 15 people in Jamaica, 39 in Grenada, five in Venezuela, one in Tobago, one in Barbados, four in the Dominican Republic and three in Haiti.

In Jamaica, stores and shelters filled with more than 15,000 people were running short of food, according to Nadene Newsome of Jamaica’s emergency relief agency. Officials planned to fly food into cut-off areas by helicopter.

About 98% of the island was still without power and 40 roads were blocked by debris. The main airport, in Kingston, reopened yesterday.

Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson and visiting Trinidadian leader Patrick Manning toured areas hard hit by Ivan and looting.

Some residents protested, accusing the government of neglect that could have saved lives.

In Grenada, devastated by a direct hit last week that killed 39 people and destroyed or damaged 90% of homes, an Italian yachtsman was rescued yesterday. He rode out the storm and was trapped for nearly a week aboard his boat, police said.

Ivan’s eye skirted Jamaica’s south coast on Saturday, as it did Grand Cayman on Sunday, when it lashed the British territory with 150mph (241kph) winds.

“The island looks like a war zone,” said Diana Uzzell, a business manager on Grand Cayman, where the storm flung huge pleasure yachts up on land and toppled trees three stories high.

Tourism director Pilar Bush said up to half of the 15,000 homes on Grand Cayman had suffered significant damage that made them inhabitable. Bush, speaking in a telephone call from New York City, said the government was looking at hotels and school dormitories to house the thousands of displaced people. Soup kitchens were set up yesterday.

Many hotels were damaged, with torn-off roof tiles.

The second floor of the Divi Beach Club Colony Resort was torn away by the storm. Debris blanketed the Caymans.

Some houses were reduced to piles of splintered wood. A hangar at the Georgetown airport had its roof blown off. Officials said the airport was open only for restricted flights.

The British Royal Navy’s HMS Richmond and a supply ship came to the rescue yesterday but were unable to dock and were riding out rough seas 15 miles (24 kilometres) outside the Caymanian capital of George Town, navy spokesman Paul Parrack said.

In Mexico, hundreds of people abandoned fishing settlements on the Yucatan peninsula and the resort city of Cancun opened shelters and closed beaches. Cozumel island, a dive resort known for its lumbering sea turtles, shut its airport and halted cruise ship arrivals.

While projections had the storm bypassing the Florida Keys, US officials kept an evacuation order in place for the 79,000 residents.

Rattling from the 160 mph (257 kph) winds and driving sheets of rain, the Pinar del Rio Hotel was filled mostly with evacuated European tourists. Some young Belgians played cards.

“Normally, we stay in people’s homes, but we were obliged to come here,” said Sebine Ruts, a 31-year-old tourism promoter from the Belgian town of Tielen.

Hurricane Charley killed at least four people and caused 1 billion US dollars in damage when it battered western Cuba last month.

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.

Only three Category 5 storms are known to have hit the United States, the last Hurricane Andrew in 1992. It killed 43 people and causing more than 30 billion US dollars in damage in south Florida.

Farther south, Tropical Depression 11 formed east of the Leeward Islands and was expected to strengthen slowly. Storm warnings were posted for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and a tropical storm watch for the British Virgin Islands, Saba, St Eustatius and St Maarten.